Grey England
by Alara
Summary: Collection of interconnected shorts set between the adventures in Narnia. (See Notes.) First is about a week after the Pevensies come back from evacuation. How do they reconcile their Narnian selves with their English lives? Golden Age tales to follow.
1. The Pevensies in England

Narnian Tales

IMO there's not nearly enough Lucy-centered fics out there, so I'm filling some of the gaps. This will all be as in line with canon as I can do (tho if I hit on VODT I don't promise I won't go into Lucian territory ). However I think most of this will be on the Golden Age as well as the post-LWW, pre-PC England years. Probably also England years between PC and VODT, and possibly between VODT and SC.

Some notes/thoughts: According to canon, Lucy is 8-23 during LWW (1940); 9 during PC ('41); 10 during VODT ('42); 17 during LB ('49). However, there are a few issues with this timeline. First, evacuation didn't end until 1944 most places, so how were the Pevensie kids back home in the beginning of PC if PC took place in '41? Then in VODT it is mentioned Father is back from the War and he and Mother and Susan are going to America over the summer (so Father can lecture), it seems far more likely to me that there is, or was supposed to be, a larger gap between either LWW and PC or PC and VODT, and the summer of VODT is the first post-War summer, so takes place in 1946 at earliest. (It couldn't be 1945 because the war didn't end until September, and VODT specifically mentions it is August in Cambridge. And I think if the war were ongoing, the Pevensie parents wouldn't risk both of themselves and Susan on a transatlantic voyage when there was still significant risk to crossing the Atlantic.)

Therefore if I touch on VODT, Lucy will be 14 going on 15, and Edmund would be 15-16. I think Eustace is supposed to be 9 or 10 in VODT, but I might age him up to 12 or so.

I like the looks of the kids in the movies made in the 2000s, so generally will go with those. I don't think they're far off of the books, really, as far as I can tell (except Caspian), as the boy who played Peter had reasonably goldish hair, Susan had long darker hair, Edmund's straight black hair just SUITS the character (I can't remember specifics about his looks), and Lucy's medium auburnish hair could, I think, be considered as on the darker end of "fair" hair, which is the only description of her hair I can remember offhand.

Also, I like General Orieus the Centaur that they made up for the first movie, so he's going to exist too.

I've never particularly liked "Helen" and "Frank" for the Pevensie parents' names (seems too on the nose to me, despite the movie setting the name as Helen). Going on the basis of Mr/Mrs Pevensie's sister's given name being "Alberta," I'd say that "Margaret" is a bit more likely… or possibly Georgiana, but I'm going with Margaret. And I like Joseph to go with Margaret, so Mr Pevensie's name will be Joseph.

Now all that said about how I'm missing some Lucy in the Narnia fiction section… the first chunk is a High King in England bit. And his mother. Lucy's coming soon, though! And the rest.

This is about a week or so after they've arrived back home from the evacuation.

* * *

Margaret Pevensie watched her four children sitting at the breakfast table out of the corner of her eye. They'd been brought back from the country about a week ago, and she still wasn't quite certain how to accept the changes she saw in them.

The changes were nothing like what she'd been led to expect.

They'd been warned when evacuation was supposed to come to an end. Their wartime experiences might change your children, they'd been told. Young children might have forgot their toilet training, or sleepwalk. Older children might have a stronger tendency to hang about or cling to their parents—or on the other hand, might not speak to anyone at all. They might have picked up unsavory language or habits like smoking. They might have found boy or girl friends in the country, and not want to come home at all.

No one said anything about the kinds of changes she was seeing in her four, and she was afraid to speak up in the Ladies' Aid Society meetings, in case she was overreacting.

And what would she say? Her children had been changed by the War, but it was all to the better?

Peter, her golden-haired son, had left for the country strained under his promise to his father to look after his mother and sisters and brother, stressed under the burden of trying to be the man of the house when he was barely beginning to step into manhood himself. But over his time away, he'd reined in his sometimes explosive anger, had become someone to whom his younger siblings literally looked to for guidance, and had achieved a sort of mid point between caring for their family, and keeping himself in balance.

Susan, her lovely daughter, had left off the bossiness that had started to become her hallmark, and instead had acquired a deep well of kindness and patience that left her mother mentally gaping. Was the girl in fact only thirteen? She seemed so steady and mature to be that young, but there it was.

Edmund's changes were most obvious. He'd dropped the sullen rage that had informed every movement, abandoned the mean spiritedness of his interactions with his siblings, and seemed to have grown to accept and love his brother as his leader. He was kind to his sisters, and only teased in a happy manner, in a way that would really not hurt. It was heartening to see.

And little Lucy… it was difficult to say what had changed with her, since she'd always been bubbly and bright and optimistic and excitable, and she still was all of these things. But now there was a strange sort of purpose to her movements, a light to her eyes, that utterly, utterly belied her young age, as though the child had seen such things as made her very soul grow and blossom.

It all confused Margaret, and frightened her a little. It seemed sometimes that her children utterly forgot her presence, forgot they even had a Mother. But then one or another of them would look at her, with just a hint of surprise, but the surprise was always mixed with gratefulness, so she couldn't really mind all that much.

She had noticed straight off that things were different with them, of course, but then she hadn't seen her children in so long, she was expecting differences. She rather overlooked most of them—except Edmund's improved temperament; no one could have missed that. And certainly there were physical changes, height and weight and so forth, but the personality changes, she'd overlooked—until four days ago.

She was still working in the factory while Joseph was still away, and Peter had offered to come walk her home. She reluctantly agreed, grateful for the opportunity to spend some time with her eldest (even if it was only a two mile-long walk) but wishing he wouldn't be exposed to some of the…less than salutary people who hung about the factories and docks.

On the other hand, she considered that her son had added at least five inches of height, she was sure, and a stone's worth of muscle to go with it. What had they been _feeding_ him in the country? And when she expressed concern at the distance, he'd only grinned. "You're walking it, aren't you, Mother? And anyway I'm used to long mar—er, runs. Lots of room to run in the country. It'll be good to stretch my legs."

So here she was, having just punched out of the factory, peering through the sunset light to find her boy. She quite missed him at first, standing so tall and strong on the sidewalk, this couldn't possibly be her son, but then he smiled at her, came up and took her lunch pail from her in one hand and tucked her arm through his with a curiously practiced movement, and started to lead her back toward home, asking her about her day.

They'd made it a block and the usual interference hadn't come, and she released the breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Peter gave her a sidelong glance, and she opened her mouth to answer his unspoken question, when she heard _him,_ and bit back a groan.

"Eyyy, Maggie luv, 'oos yer new boyfriend? 'Arvent you bin tellin' me for yonks yer married? An' 'ere you is, swannin' about with some young feller instead of yer ole pal Danny."

Margaret's back stiffened and she lifted her chin, looking straight ahead, same as all the other days. She felt Peter's arm tense where it held her hand tucked through his.

"Ignore him, Peter," she cautioned out of the side of her mouth. But Danny made it impossible to ignore him, as he stepped out of the alley where he'd been lounging, and stopped squarely in their path.

"Wot!" he peered at Peter's young face and laughed. "Been robbin' some cradles, 'ave you, Maggie?"

"Peter, this is Danny Mills." Margaret said evenly. "He works at the factory with me. Danny, this is my son, Peter."

Peter coldly tipped his head slightly in greeting, never taking his eyes off the fellow.

Nervously, Margaret started to step around Danny, even though it meant stepping down into the muck in the street, but she was surprised when Peter held fast to her arm and stood firm, preventing her from moving.

"Mr Mills," he said pleasantly but with a stern coolness Margaret had never heard from… well, from anyone before. "You appear to be in my mother's and my path. Would you mind stepping aside so we may pass?"

" 's'matter of fact, I would mind," Danny said, delight at a potential fight creeping into his eyes. "Wot yer gonna do 'bout it?"

Margaret felt cold steal over her. _No, don't let his brute of a man try to fight her boy._ Don't, for that matter, let her boy try to fight this brute of a man. "Peter," she said. "We can go around him."

"No, Mother, we can't," Peter almost sighed. "He needs to understand some basic manners, which include not accosting women in the street, nor preventing their safe passage home."

"Oho, I need manners, do I? An' who're you to say so, you pup?" Danny snarled as he caught the insult.

Peter, to her amazement, was unfazed. "Clearly you do. Or you would not presently be standing in Our path."

"Oh, this is ri—" Danny began, reaching out toward them, but before he could touch either of them, Peter's hand flashed out, faster than a snake striking, and caught him by the wrist. The empty lunch pail hit the ground with a clatter… a second after his fingers were wrapped around Danny's thick wrist.

"Do not," he said, in a suddenly dangerous tone, "think to harm my mother or me." And the grip he had on Danny's wrist, for all that it appeared so gentle, was apparently immovable, as Danny immediately went to jerk his hand out of Peter's grasp, only to gasp in pain, and give Peter a wild-eyed, suddenly more respectful look. Peter's fingers tightened slightly, and Danny's eyes bulged.

With very little fanfare, Peter used the grip on this wrist to steer the older man out of the way, and he smiled coldly into Danny's face. "My thanks for clearing our path. I do not wish to hear any reports of my mother being molested in _any_ fashion. By anyone here. Is. This. Clear." His speech was ringing with a clarion tone that almost had _Margaret_ telling him it was quite, quite clear. And she didn't want to know what would happen if Peter did hear otherwise.

Peter's whole focus was on Danny, though, and he held on to his wrist until he got a shaky nod. Peter leaned closer to him, and Danny blanched at what he saw in the young man's face.

"It is well. Good day to you."

Without so much as a backward glance, Peter scooped up the fallen pail, and led his mother past Danny and toward home.

They walked in silence for a couple of blocks.

"How long has that been going on?" He sounded an odd mixture of grim and tired.

Somehow she didn't dare prevaricate with that tone in his voice. "A couple of months."

"If he bothers you again, let me know immediately." His words were crisp.

She could only nod.

* * *

A short while later they swung in at the front door, Peter whistling an unfamiliar, jaunty tune. "Peter!" a cry came from upstairs, and small light feet pattered down the stairs. "Hello, Mother," Lucy greeted Margaret. "Susan has tea set out for you in the kitchen. I'll take and wash your pail."

"Oh, darling, you don't need to—" but she stopped at a gentle nudge from Peter as he took her coat for her.

"Mother, you've been working all day, and had a tiresome discussion at the end of it. Go and sit down. The girls have everything in control here."

"Susan even has supper started," piped up Lucy.

That brought a weak smile to Margaret's face as she headed, slightly bewildered, toward the kitchen. Before she turned the corner, she heard a snippet of another odd conversation between Lucy and Peter.

"Brother," and her little girl sounded quite stern. "You're looking particularly Magnificent. Did something happen?"

"No, sister-mine, nothing happened."

"But something _almost_ did," she pressed. "You have that _look_ again."

"I just helped our lady mother to avoid an insult," Peter replied lightly, straightening the hang of a picture on the wall. "Nothing a gentleman oughtn't do, if he can. But I think I shall walk Mother to and from the factory for a while. _Peace_ ," he said, apparently at Lucy's expression. "Peace, Valiant Lioness. It will only worry Mother if you go into battle, even on her behalf."

There was a gusty sigh. "I can't do _anything_ here."

"You will," Peter said. "You will. Remember…" and here his voice dropped lower, and Margaret could no longer hear what he was saying.

"Fine," Lucy replied aloud. "I'll remember. Come, let's go help finish getting supper ready."

Quickly Margaret ducked down the hall ahead of them, pondering the strange half-heard conversation.

Her other two children were in the kitchen, having a conversation of their own, which abruptly cut off as she entered. More secrets.

What exactly had gone on in the country during the evacuation? The Professor hadn't indicated anything significant in his letters. Now she was wondering if he'd left things out. She wished Joseph were back, and he could offer his views on their somewhat strange children.

Then she saw the meal the children had lovingly prepared for her—when had they learnt to cook beyond the little she'd taught the girls?—and set aside her worries to ooh and ahh and thank them for their thoughtfulness.

Susan had managed to make the ration-stretched pantry stretch even further than Margaret herself did, and she decided to give them all a treat in return. She'd been saving it for when Joseph came home, whenever that would be, but decided now was as good a time as any. For the moment, though, she'd enjoy a meal she hadn't had to cook.

They sat down to the table, and Peter immediately offered thanks for the food, quite as though this were an essential part of the meal. Before they'd gone away, the children usually forgot grace, or only remembered it on special occasions, or birthdays. Now, they were saying a blessing over even breakfast, for heaven's sake. It was another of those peculiar changes they'd come back with. Not a bad change at all, just… out of the ordinary.

"Oi, Ed, leave the rest of us some bread, will you?" Susan reproved her brother, as he reached for a third slice.

"Not my fault you're a slow eater," Edmund teased, and Margaret relaxed as they acted quite _normally_ for once.

"I," replied Susan with immense dignity, "choose to _chew_ my food, not inhale it, Edmund."

"You are eating with the appetite of a centa—a centurion," Lucy said, uncharacteristically stumbling over her words. "What've you been up to, Ed?"

"Oh," Edmund waved his bread airily. "I went out and fought back the encroaching Giants on the northern border today." He smiled mischieviously. "Gives one a marvelous appetite, you know."

"Fought Giants?" His mother inquired, and they all jumped as though they'd forgotten she was there. Again. "Whatever do you mean, Eddie?"

"He weeded out the back garden," Susan explained. "There really were some monster weeds. He had to get the spade out to dig some of them up at the root."

"Oh! Just like Lilygloves told—" Lucy started, and bit her lip, as though she'd said something wrong.

"Lily Gloves?" Margaret asked. "Is that someone you met in the country?"

"Why, yes, mother," Edmund replied, looking particularly guileless. "An excellent gardener. You could say she—er—knew plants from the ground up. Taught us quite a lot."

"Indeed." Peter said gravely.

"Especially about apples," Susan added.

Lucy laughed at that. "Ed, I'll help you tomorrow," she offered. "I hadn't realized you were tackling the garden today."

"It's all right, sister fair," Edmund replied easily. "Though I'll take your help tomorrow. The side garden still needs tending too. Not," he added hastily, "that you haven't done as good a job as anyone could, Mother. It's just far too much for one person, working, with no help around the house."

"We're here now," Peter said, in a firm voice, and Margaret wondered when he'd got so much _older_. "She is not alone any more."

Margaret smiled around the table at them at that. "And I am so very happy to have you all _home_." She said. "It feels like it's been _decades_."

A little laugh burst out of Peter at that. "It does, doesn't it, mother?"

The others exchanged an unreadable look.

"Well," Margaret rose from the table. "No, sit down, Susan. I have a little surprise for you all. I was saving it for when your father gets home, but as that date is …not fixed… I see no reason not to celebrate your homecoming."

"What is it, Mother?"

"Let me fetch it for you."

"Yes, sit down, Mother."

"Hush!" she laughed, and waved them all back to their chairs. "It's only a little something. Sit."

A moment later, she set the tin she'd hidden in the back of the pantry in the center of the table, and pulled the top off with a little flourish. "There!" she said. "Even in the country, I suppose you haven't seen _that_ ," and she beamed at them.

They all looked in the tin, which was nearly full of Turkish Delight.

"Go on, have a piece," Margaret encouraged them, when they sat looking dumbly at it. "It's quite all right."

"A-all right, Mother," Lucy said, a trifle shakily, and with an odd look at Edmund, reached out and plucked a piece, and nibbled on it. "Oh, rosewater," she said, and smiled. "I haven't had this for—for ages."

"Go on, the rest of you," Margaret said, a trifle anxiously. She had rather expected more excitement or eagerness or… something. Susan and Peter took pieces next, but Edmund looked rather green.

"I apologise, Mother, I think I'm quite full," he said. "And I've rather lost my taste for sweets. But I do sincerely appreciate the thought, and—"

"Won't you even have a little piece?" She asked, unable to keep the hurt entirely from her voice. "You used to love Turkish Delight."

"Oh." He looked a bit blank. "We-e-ell, I suppose a little piece." And he picked up the tiniest piece he could find, and took the most minuscule nibble he could. Peter gave him an approving nod, and Susan an encouraging one, and Lucy leaned her shoulder against his for a second. He took a slightly larger bite, and smiled more naturally at Margaret. "Thank you, Mother. This was very thoughtful, and how long did you have to save your sugar coupons to get it for us? You really didn't need to."

"Oh, Eddie, it was nothing. It's worth it to see you children enjoying a sweet." She said, and kissed the top of his head, which seemed to enable him to relax his shoulders. His siblings gave him all particular looks, too.

"You're a brick, Ed," he heard Lucy whisper, when she turned back to the pantry, echoed by Peter's quiet "Well done."

"Mother, let us get the dishes, you go sit down with the paper." Peter said.

Margaret started to protest, only to be stilled by Lucy's bright eyed plead, "Please, Mummy, we'd like to. You've been… alone for so long."

"Well, all right, but this is only for tonight, you hear?" Somehow she couldn't quite muster enough sternness in her voice.

"We'll negotiate that tomorrow," Susan said with a smile, filling the sink with water. "You go sit down."

It occurred to Margaret then that her children were trying to push her out of the room. So they could have more of those peculiar conversations?

She crossed the living room and sat, reaching for a magazine a friend had loaned her to while away the lonely evenings, and heard the low murmur of conversation over the splash of water and the rattle of crockery.

Could she listen in?

Should she listen in?

If it had been one of her children eavesdropping—and no mistake, that is what it was—he'd be scolded. But… She had to know what strange thing had befallen all of her children. No matter that they seemed fine, in fact, un child-like; what if one of them had nearly died while they were away? That would explain the closeness. But if something like that had happened, the Professor would have wired her.

Anyway, that didn't explain the maturity they all bore. The almost fey expressions that crossed each of their faces at times made her shiver, knowing to her bones that _something_ had happened to alter her children, alter them deeply. But they weren't talking to her about it. Though at least they were talking to one another.

Perhaps, when Joseph came home, he could find out… She nodded off mid-thought, before she could creep up to the doorframe and listen in.

The children in the kitchen heard their mother's soft breath slow and deepen into the rhythms of sleep, and they all relaxed.

"You nearly slipped up, there, Lu," said Peter, gently pushing Susan aside so he could scrub the biggest pot. "At least Lilygloves' name can sound like an English name, I guess. Lily Gloves, who we met in the country. Ha!"

"Oh, I am sorry," Lucy said, drying the flatware. "I just miss them so much already."

"Well, at least you didn't say anything too outrageous," Edmund said thoughtfully. "I mean, it would be pretty difficult to explain mentioning someone called General Orieus."

"Almost as difficult as explaining why you no longer care for sweets," Susan said sympathetically, handing Edmund some of the dried plates to put away. "Tough luck, Ed."

"Oh, I don't mind," he ducked his dark head. "But why of all the sweets did it have to be Turkish Delight?" He chuckled and shook his head. "I think it was the shock of seeing it after so long, more than anything else."

"Mm." There was a little silence.

Then Lucy burst out: "Are any of the rest of you afraid?"

"Afraid of what, Lu?"

"Of forgetting. I remember how quickly This Place—England, I mean—faded out of my mind when we hadn't been in Narnia all that long. I pretty nearly forgot—oh, everyone here, even Father and Mother. And I couldn't bear forgetting Aslan, and all our wonderful years at Cair Paravel, and all the rest."

"No fear, Lucy!" Edmund exclaimed. "We'll talk it over often. Keep our memories fresh."

Peter nodded agreement. "And don't forget: Once a King or Queen of Narnia, always a King or Queen of Narnia. And remember He didn't say that applied only in Narnia."

"Is that why you came in with such a kingly look on your face?" Lucy asked him, and his face darkened.

"After a fashion. Though I wish I'd had Rhindon with me today. I'd have beat that man black and blue, and taught him respect for a woman and a mother and a wife."

Lucy hugged him. "It sounds like you handled him, whoever he is, just fine."

He smiled and kissed the side of her head. "Valiant Queen. Next time I shall just send for you."

They sat and talked over Narnian things some more, and discussed ways to get back into the English way of doing things, until Margaret woke, scolded them for letting her fall asleep, and shooed them off to bed.


	2. Father's Homecoming

A few weeks after the first chapter.

* * *

Susan rapped on Peter and Edmund's door. "Enter," came Peter's voice. She poked her head in, and looked around. Peter was leaning against the window, looking down into the tiny back yard, watching Edmund and Lucy weeding the side garden patch. A notebook rested, forgotten, in his hand.

When she didn't say anything, just stood there looking at him for a moment, he turned. "Yes? What do you need, Susan?"

She dropped her eyes from his bright blue gaze, still piercing and commanding, even here. She fiddled with the hem of her sweater. "Well. You know Father's coming home tomorrow."

The golden head turned back to watch their younger siblings. "I do."

"Are you nervous?"

"No."

"Are you…" she gulped, and went on. Peter was always at his most obstinate when you suggested he might be the slightest bit out of order. "Are you going to… give the family back to him?"

He twisted to look at her, looking confused, and closer to his own age here in England. "What do you mean?"

"Well, your taking care of Mother with that man down at the factory a few weeks ago, for one."

"What?" his brows knit. "You didn't hear the things he was saying. He needed taking care of."

"And Father's not here."

"Right. So I took care of it. What's wrong with that?"

 _Ah. He has no idea. All right. That makes things easier._ Drawing on the years in which she earned her title as the Gentle Queen, she crossed to him.

She knew, now, that she was right to speak to him, to soften the potentially harsh meeting between a father and his eldest son. A father who would still remember the gangly boy on the cusp of adolescence, and wouldn't be remotely prepared for the king gazing out of his son's face. A son who was used to ruling, and accustomed to taking the burdens of leadership and responsibility on his own shoulders. A son who was unused to ceding that responsibility to anyone else.

"It's going to be more difficult for you and me," she said. "Accepting Father as the head of the household, I mean. He was gone for so long, even before Narnia, and then…"

Understanding dawned. "…And then, with the four of us spending the better part of two decades there, learning and growing and ruling…"

"And of course we had our advisors, and our tutors, and Orieus really was like another father, especially to you and Ed," she said, "but you and I had to be brother and sister and father and mother to Ed and Lu, especially early on."

"And now we're right back there again," he said. "Oh. I hadn't even thought of it."

"And we all—the three of us—are in the long habit of looking, ultimately, to you for direction."

"We were co-rulers!" he protested. "You all had as much say in the goings on in Narnia as I did. More, in some instances," he snorted.

"Yes, but when push really came to shove, it was our High King we looked to, and Aslan."

"True." He sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. "It's funny. I was just writing down all the precepts of chivalry, of knighthood, and of kingship that I could remember. I don't want to forget them, and surely if they are good enough for the High King of Narnia, they are good enough for plain old Peter Pevensie. But now I wonder if dwelling on our time in Narnia will make it more difficult to… fit in, here."

"Well, I don't see how being chivalrous and knightly and kingly could get you into trouble," Susan said slowly. "But especially with Dad, you're going to have to keep it under wraps somewhat, or he might feel you've taken his place."

"But he told me to!"

"Yes, and now you have to give that place back, Peter." She urged him gently, and he blew out a breath.

"You're right. Though I think fitting back in is going to be hardest for Ed and Lu, not you or I."

"How's that?"

"They were so little when he went away… spent so much of their lives away from him. I'd be surprised if Lucy really remembers him much. And Ed, of course, was so angry at him for going away in the first place, back then."

"Right. But all that's changed, now. I suppose," she laughed a little, "the four of us will just have to hang together through this, too. I never thought _England_ would offer as many difficulties as Narnia did!"

"Every world has its challenges, which we must overcome with as much grace as we may," he said thoughtfully, and again, the High King shone through. Then he was just Peter again as he snarked, "And my chief challenge seems to be having _three_ younger siblings to keep after, in whatever world."

She mock-punched him in the arm. "That's not a very chivalrous thought. You are supposed to care for and protect us!"

"You told me to keep it under wraps," he shot back, and she laughed.

"Really, though, thanks for the reminder, Su. Things are going to change, one way or the other, tomorrow."

"We'll weather through it," she said. "We always do."

* * *

The next day was tense. At the station, where they were to meet Father, Peter nearly had to sit on Lucy to keep her from bouncing around, Ed had fallen into a sort of uncertain sulk, and Susan was being extraordinarily upbeat, keeping a smile fixed to her face at all times.

Their mother by contrast was the epitome of calm, and Peter was suddenly reminded of Susan as she'd been during their Narnian days: serene and kind and calm in nearly every circumstance. She never wanted to make a fuss or upset anyone, and Peter suspected much the same thought was going through his mother's mind. He gave Lucy an admonishing squeeze, tousled Edmund's hair (he got a scowl back), and patted Susan's shoulder as he rose and strode to where his mother stood alone on the platform, looking past the other milling people, her eyes fixed on the empty tracks.

"C'mon, Mum," he urged, gently taking her arm and leading her to the bench where the others were sitting. "It's no good your standing around in the wind alone. Sit with us. We'll all get up to meet Dad when the train gets here."

Her hands flew to her cheeks. "Are my nerves so obvious as all that?"

He grinned. "No, but your hair flying around in the wind does look a trifle odd."

The hands moved to her head in disbelief. "My hat. My goodness, I left my hat at home. How could—"

"I didn't notice until we were nearly here," Peter said apologetically.

"You can borrow Susan's," Lucy volunteered. "Hers matches your coat."

"Certainly, Mother," Susan agreed, "Here, take it."

"But what will you wear?"

"She'll take Lucy's," Edmund put in.

"But that leaves Lucy without a—"

"She doesn't mind," Peter, Susan, and Edmund all said, before Lucy could say a word. The youngest only laughed and nodded.

"Truly, Mother, I don't mind."

"She'd be barefoot too, if we gave her half a chance," Edmund muttered to Peter, and got an elbow in the ribs from his sister for his teasing.

So they were all laughing and chattering and far more relaxed when the train finally chuffed its way up to the station, and then there was a veritable flood of muted khaki and green and brown out of the cars' narrow doors.

There were cries of joy from some of the knots of people around them, intermixed with cries of half-dismay when a loved one proved to have returned missing fingers or his nose or an ear.

Mrs Pevensie stood on her tiptoes for a moment, bracing herself against her son's strong shoulder, straining to see her long-gone husband in the milling crowd.

Peter took advantage of his relative height to scan the faces of the men pouring out of the cars. They all looked so similar, with their uniform jackets and hats framing faces with uniform haircuts and moustaches.

Susan concentrated on keeping her smile bright, and blushed when she inadvertently caught a passing young man's eye.

Edmund frowned as he watched the crowd, trying to put a few years' ageing on the face in his mind, recalled how Peter's face had changed so drastically after the Battle of Beruna, and mentally added another couple of years.

Lucy, for her part, uncharacteristically hung back a little, unable to reconcile the rather stern looking man in the sepia-toned photograph with any of these living men walking towards them. She turned in a circle, looking at all of the identically-dressed men carrying identical haversacks, and felt a little afraid. How would she ever know her father in this crowd, when she had only the vaguest memory of what he looked like?

Then she remembered the feel of a Lion's breath on her and straightened. It was only her father, after all. Orieus had been far, far more stern than anyone she'd ever met here. And if she didn't quite remember her father—didn't _quite_ recognize him—what did it matter? She'd just have to get to know him now the War was over.

As she straightened and turned, she heard a step on the pavement behind her.

"Is—is that—my little Lucy?" She heard someone gasp, and, bewildered, turned toward him. Oh—she _did_ recognize him, in a vague sort of way. Not his face, so much as his personality or his presence, but...

"Dad?" She half whispered, taking a step toward him.

Edmund turned to see what she was looking at, and his eyes went wide. "Dad!" He shouted, as though he were eight again, and right after it came Peter's voice, in a bark, _Dad_ , like he was shouting orders in battle, and then the whole knot of them closed in on one another and it was all tears and hugs and shaking hands and claps on backs. The boys got manly hugs from him, the girls a smacking kiss on the tops of their heads, and Margaret a sweet kiss that made Susan sigh and Edmund make a face. Then they were all walking down the road together, a whole family for the first time in a long, long time.

* * *

It took a few days for things to settle down. As there really wasn't a routine for anyone to get into—school didn't start for another two weeks—they all more or less made it up as they went along. Mr Pevensie would take his sons fishing in the early morning, and Lucy went along too a few times when she woke early enough.

That had been one of the first surprises; Joseph had entirely expected one or another of his sons to strenuously object to their baby sister tagging along. Or at least give her a look or roll his eyes. To the contrary, they both welcomed her eagerly into the fisherman's ranks, and showed no sign of wishing she were gone.

And another surprise was on its heels: rather than being impatient and running about and scaring all the fish away, as any energetic girl of her age would be expected to do, Lucy was nearly soporific, leaning heavily and contentedly against Peter's back as she lazily watched her line for bites. Edmund was snugged against her leg, in turn, idly watching his own line.

No one spoke much. Mr Pevensie _had_ intended to let this be a manly, bonding sort of activity, wherein he could impart some of his hard-earned wisdom about growing up to be a strong and stalwart sort of man, but… he had the strangest sense neither of his boys needed the lessons.

There was something odd about his children, and he couldn't quite place what it was.

Perhaps it was the odd half conversations they had with one another, almost as though they forgot he was sitting two feet away. Or perhaps they thought he was asleep, as he had his hat pulled quite low across his face.

"You know what this reminds me of?" Peter drawled suddenly, casting a sideways glance at Lucy, who _snickered._

"I believe I do, brother mine. It reminds me of a time when—"

Edmund straightened. "Oi! Allow me, friends, to advise that the first who should hit me in the face with any fish will soon be meeting the rest of the pond's inhabitants …in their living rooms." He said, with perfect dignity.

Lucy giggled. "Oh, Ed. We wouldn't. On purpose anyway."

"You're still maintaining it was entirely an accident? You ruined my best doub… er, shirt, dear sister." He cast a nervous glance at his apparently-sleeping father.

"It's not my fault that Otter came chattering up—" started, a trifle heated.

"Ssh, sister. Calm down, or you'll scare the fish," Peter reminded her, and she relaxed back againt him with a sigh. "You too, Ed."

"Certainly, your magnificence," Edmund replied, and Joseph though that a very curious name for a boy to give his elder brother.

There was a little silence, and Joseph used the time to think. Something about the conversation—its tone, as though they were discussing secrets instead of fishing, or perhaps the slightly odd cadence to their words—bothered him slightly. Perhaps they'd picked up a bit of one of these country dialects? That must be it.

He made a show of 'starting awake' then, stretched, and readjusted his pole. "Anyone have any bites?" he asked casually.

"Ed has two; Lu has one pretty big one—"

"—I threw the really tiny one back—" she interjected.

"—and I've got three mediumish ones." Peter finished.

"Ever our leader," Lucy smiled, and though the tone was teasing, her eyes were sincere.

Joseph decided he'd had enough of this strangeness. "Well I've got two decent sized ones, and that should be ample fish for dinner, so what say we head back home?"

The three exchanged a look, then rose as one.

Joseph rather had the feeling they'd have stayed, sprawled across one another like puppies, if he'd let them. Just as well they were heading home, then.

* * *

Later, after the children were in bed, he and Margaret discussed it. "I just don't know," she said, in response to his theory of the children having picked up a trace of a dialect. "It doesn't seem to fit. It's not how they speak, exactly. It's how they _act."_

"Well, what is it they're doing?"

"They're… _good."_ He gave her a look. "I know, it sounds stupid when one says it out loud, but they're unnaturally good. They hardly quarrel or squabble, they are courteous and kind and respectful, and even when it rains for an entire day and they're all cooped up indoors, they get along pretty beautifully. And the moment a quarrel might start, all Peter or Susan have to do is say a word, or give a look, and the quarrel is forgot.

"And the other day, there was a boy teasing a kitten when Edmund and Lucy were helping me carry groceries back home, and Lucy shouted at him to stop."

"That certainly sounds like Lucy."

"Except she gave Edmund her bag and started after the boy, quite as though she were going to box his ears or rescue the kitten, or, oh, I don't know. But she didn't react like a usual little girl. I'd have expected her to cry out of pity for the kitten; she was ready to fight, or at least to rescue."

Joseph sat up straighter. "My goodness. What happened then?"

"Edmund muttered something about valor, put his bags down, and caught up with her, said something she didn't much like, and sent her back to me. It was all very fast. It takes far longer to tell you than it took to actually happen, you see. And Eddie caught up to the boy, said something to _him_ he didn't much like, and simply _took_ the kitten away from him. And whatever he said to the other boy left him standing there staring, when I was half expecting to have to witness a fistfight. And while I'm glad the children would defend a poor, helpless animal from someone who would be cruel to it…" she sighed. "Again, it all seemed very… deliberate. As though they had roles to play, or a job to fulfill."

"Hm." Joseph was silent a moment. "What happened to the kitten?"

"Oh, Lucy took it, and looked at it a moment, and then rather suddenly carried it up a few doors and gave it to those elderly sisters who live at thirty-six. The Misses Featherson. And there was another strange thing."

"What's that?"

"Lucy gave the kitten to Miss Featherston, and said to her, 'I know you've decided to get a kitten, and this one needs a safe, loving home. Won't you take him in?' and Miss Featherston agreed. I came up as quickly as I could, but Lucy had already gone on. Of course I apologized for Lucy inflicting a pet on a neighbor, and offered to take it back, but Miss Featherston laughed. 'Bless me, the little lady is right,' she said. 'We _have_ been thinking of getting a pet. But what I don't understand is how she knew. For you see,' she said to me, 'We only settled that we definitely wanted a kitten about an hour ago. I was just heading out to the shop, when the little miss solved that problem very nicely.' "

Joseph frownd. "That is a little peculiar," he admitted. "But surely it's a coincidence."

"Maybe. But there's just something odd. Like they're not the children we sent away."

"Well, children _do_ grow, you know. And who knows what effect growing up during the Blitz, and the beastly War, and having to leave your whole town behind, might have on a child? Perhaps they just had to grow up a little sooner, and now their childhood fits them a little oddly. We just need to have faith and patience that it will all work out for the best."

"Do you think so?"

"You're telling me my children are, after a war, _more_ polite, _more_ thoughtful, _more_ courteous, and _more_ selfless than they were before? Darling, I think we have the least worrisome children in the whole of south England. Peculiar or not."

"I suppose you're right."

"Just have faith." He soothed her, and peace fell on the finally united household.

* * *

Please let me know your thoughts so far!


	3. Lucy at Home

Huh. This first bit turned out quite more serious than I planned it to. Anyway, this will be the last bit set between LWW and PC (I think it will be, anyway… this story has a mind of its own, and I am not used to writing pieces that are interconnected but not directly sequential. Anyway.)  
 **9/23/16:** I changed the ending of this chapter, as a reviewer commented it seemed off. I agreed it was rather over the top (I had suspected it originally to he honest), so I made some alterations. See? Reviews and constructive criticism DO help! (No, very sincerely, I really appreciate honest and helpful feedback!) 

* * *

Eventually, the immediacy of Narnia began to fade from the children's minds, and their parents stopped worrying quite so much. School starting again helped a great deal in their getting used to the ways of things in England. Peter and Susan and Edmund all were back at boarding school, and Lucy was in the last year of the village school. As the changes in Lucy were, in some ways, the subtlest, Margaret could overlook the one or two peculiarities her youngest child evinced.

The Pevensie parents had their own distractions from the changes wrought in their children. Joseph went back to his work as a lecturer at the university, and Margaret could finally quit the factory and work on restoring the house to its pre-War condition. When Lucy got home from school, she and her mother first worked hard at converting the smaller vegetable patch into a haven for the flowers and pretty plants Mrs Pevensie liked seeing.

After that came washing all of the windows in the house (now they could take those dreadful blackout curtains down!), and repainting all of the windowsills and trim. All very normal, until Margaret came down one morning to discover that Lucy had got up quite early, and had scrubbed the entire kitchen floor. Cheerfully. Without being asked.

So, once more, the Pevensie parents had to contend with the fact that their children were uncommonly good, and they'd had little to do with it. Well, thought Mrs Pevensie, at least Lucy was still prone to going about barefoot every chance she got. The quirk was endearing rather than exasperating, now, and really, who did it hurt?

Joseph kept up his fishing on the weekends, and occasionally took Lucy with him. On one of these trips, he decided to try to suss out the source of some of the changes.

"Lucy," he said one day, as they were walking home. "Your mother told me about Edmund's rather odd reaction to the Turkish Delight when you all first came home. Do you know anything about that?" He knew his daughter was very truthful, and was curious to see what she'd do with a straightforward question.

"Is it still bothering Mother?" Lucy asked worriedly. "Edmund will feel awful if it is."

"Not… exactly," her father replied. "Rather, she is curious. We both are, actually."

"Well," Lucy began slowly, obviously choosing her words with care. "When we left for the country, Ed wasn't… really himself."

"So your mother has told me."

"And the country… where we went to, when we were sent away, was so different than here, it really allowed all of us to be our real selves. Or, begin to learn who our real selves are, at least. Do you know what I mean?" she asked looking up at him.

He had an expression of deep concentration on his face. "I think so."

"All right." She thought a moment. Then, suddenly, "Edmund won't get into _any_ trouble with you if I tell you something, will he? Promise me."

Joseph was a little startled at the demand. "Certainly. I promise."

"Not long after we got there, we all got into this frightful row, and Edmund fell in with some rather bad sorts. Not for long," she hastened to assure him, "and he was very soon regretful, I think, but it is harder to get away from those sorts of people, once you have fallen in with them."

Joseph cast a rather startled glance at her, from the sudden world-weariness, maturity and wisdom ringing in her voice, but didn't comment on it.

Lucy continued. "So he had fallen in with them, and then was sorry for it, and while he was with them they gave him some Turkish Delight, and we nearly lost him then."

"You mean—he nearly died?" Joseph cried. "Did he choke?"

"No, I don't think so, though I wasn't there," Lucy admitted. "But I think it was more of all of the other miserable things that came with the Turkish Delight and those bad sorts of people he was with."

"I see. So he associates the Turkish Delight with these people?"

"No, it's not that. OR not just that. It's… It reminds him, I think, of his choosing to fall in with them, even though part of him knew very well it was a stupid thing to do," Lucy replied thoughtfully. "So it reminds him, now, of just what a bad decision he made."

It sounded like Edmund had been in some sort of a gang, he thought. And he could understand why they'd all keep this from the Professor and his staff, let alone their parents. "How on earth did he get away from them, then?"

"Someone came, and rescued Ed from those bad people and their influence. And He was able to get Ed utterly, utterly free of them." Joseph wondered at the sudden gleaming joy in her voice. "And that Someone is very loving, and very kind, and very wise, and fierce, and wild, and wonderful. And He took Edmund aside and spoke to him."

"About what?"

"None of us knows," she replied. "And it doesn't matter. It's Edmund's story, not mine. But when Ed came back to us after speaking with Him—oh! The change in Ed's face! He was _himself_ again. Really and truly himself, for the first time in a long time."

"It sounds like this someone is quite remarkable. I'm glad you all met him."

"Oh, so am I. And I _do_ hope I get to see Him again someday!"

"I should like to meet him myself."

"That would be lovely." Lucy beamed up at him. "You have no idea."

He decided, then, that it was time to break up this conversation, which had taken several unexpected and serious turns. Though he'd learnt a lot that went a long way to explaining the changes in his children, carrying on such a weighty conversation and turning to find it was his child, not a colleague, with whom he was speaking, was a little unsettling. "Well, Lucy, what else have you got planned for today?"

"I was going to go over to Marjorie's house for a bit to work on our essays for English."

"Are you going over soon?"

"When we get home and wash up. I'll be home by teatime, if not sooner."

"I thought you were doing well in English this year. Your reports from your teachers have all been good."

"I know. But Marjorie doesn't seem to understand that an essay is a _story_ ," Lucy explained earnestly. "It's a very formal story, with rules as to how it should go, but it's still a story."

"And what is Marjorie writing, if she's not writing an essay?"

"A list of _facts_ ," and here Lucy sounded quite repressive.

He laughed at her tone. She sounded exactly her age, just then. Who would want _facts_ when you could have a _story,_ after all? "Don't be too hard on your friend," he said "Storytelling doesn't come naturally to everyone."

"At least she's not as bad as Eustace," Lucy sighed. "Then there'd be very little hope at all."

Joseph's laugh echoed as they turned up their walk. "You have fun with your school-friend," he said. "And do remember she is not Eustace."

She laughed in turn, as she ran inside to get cleaned up.

When she was gone, Joseph told his wife about some of the things he'd learned.  
"So, I think most of these changes can be laid at the feet of this mysterious benefactor," he said. "It seems someone intervened before any of the children went down any terribly wrong paths, and if the outcome of that is that they are particularly good, I will simply be happy in that. Besides," he added with a laugh, "I'm sure school will knock some of the perfection of goodness off of them."  
"Joseph!"

"School can be very difficult," he said unrepentantly. "Come, now. Don't tell me the girls in your school lent themselves to everyone always being on their very nicest behavior."

"Well, no," Margaret admitted. "Some would drive you to pull their hair out, in fact."

"Especially when they flirted with your fiancée," he teased her, and she flushed.

"That only happened once," she said, putting on an immense dignity. "And Ellen quite regretted it."

Wisely, Joseph elected not to ask exactly how she was made to regret it, and they went inside.

His prediction came true, when the older children came home for the Christmas holidays. Mostly, anyway. Susan had slipped a bit into being her old rather bossy, fussy self, and only caught herself when Edmund or Peter gave her a _look_. Peter was boisterous and a bit more boyish than he had been during the summer, playing Tag with Lucy in the yard, or staging snow battles with Edmund against Lucy and Susan, but then would come in and talk with his father about the goings-on in England after the War. Edmund was a trifle more inclined to get into a foul mood, but the times he didn't catch himself, Lucy would grin up at him until he laughed and let go his anger. Lucy seemed to get the littlest bit more childish when her older siblings were home, romping around the house in high spirits, but then Joseph would pass by the living room and see all four of them sprawled around and on top of one another, discussing something seriously in low voices. And once, when he slid past the open door, he noticed that Lucy was speaking of something that made her face shine with a joyous solemnity, and the other children were listening to her attentively, not dismissing her as might be expected.

Certainly there were still instances of what Margaret had termed 'slightly peculiar behavior,' but Joseph couldn't honestly bring himself to mind them, as they were all the sorts of things he wished hed had enough courage to do when he was their ages.

Peter came home late one day, obviously having been in a fight, and he refused to speak of it with anyone. Later, Margaret found out what had happened from a neighbor who'd been there.

"Oh your Peter, such a stalwart young man," the woman had sighed. "He'd been walking by that invalid hospital, and it seems there was a young soldier who'd lost an eye, an ear, and an arm to gangrene during the War. He was rather despondent," the woman had added.

"But how was Peter involved?"

"Well, Peter ran into him when he'd been on the verge of—of throwing himself in front of an omnibus," the woman had said in a hushed whisper, and shuddered. "No one had time to get to him, when we realized what he was about. But suddenly Peter was there, and jerked him back just in time. Well, I don't mind telling you, the young man was furious, and swung at Peter, who ducked it—mostly—and they fought for a minute or two, until Peter tackled him and sat on him until the hospital orderlies came out and took him inside. Anyone would have said Peter had done quite enough, you know, but he followed them inside and asked to sit with him a while.

"A nurse-aide told me a little of what Peter said to him, something like, 'Now, if you're energetic enough to fight me to die, you're energetic enough to fight yourself to live…' and then they were whisked into another room and she didn't hear any more. But she said Peter had such command in his voice. If it had been her, she wouldn't have dared try to kill herself when Peter told her not to. And it seems the young man has had a change of heart, and goes around to other fellows and helps them keep their spirits up. The nurse told me it was just the breakthrough the young man needed."

"Oh," Margaret said faintly, not really having expected something like this. She had assumed someone had made a snide comment about a girl, perhaps, or mocked Peter for being sent away to the country during the War. She hadn't expected to hear that her son had intervened in a suicide, and she sighed for the world her children were growing up in. Perhaps if they were all inclined to act a little more nobly than their peers, it wasn't a bad thing after all.

* * *

Susan and Edmund didn't get into any dramatic incidents, and Mr and Mrs Pevensie had begun to relax into enjoying the winter holidays when Lucy, of all people, nearly got into a great deal of trouble.

About four days after a really lovely Christmas, Susan and her mother had gone out to the shops, Peter and Edmund were playing chess in their rooms, and Mr Pevensie was working on drafting a lecture in his study. Lucy had been sitting in the front window watching the snow fall into the street outside, when she suddenly exclaimed and ran outside, not bothering to grab a coat or a hat as she did so, though she did bag one of Joseph's walking sticks as she passed. (She was, fortunately, wearing shoes.)

Joseph heard her exclamation from his study, heard the front door bang open, and stepped out into the hall curiously. His study looked out into the back yard, not the street, so he didn't see Lucy run out.

Peter and Edmund's heads poked out of their room, and the moment they saw the front door standing open, both muttered, "Lucy," and came charging down the steps. Their obvious alarm infected Joseph, who hurried to the front door.

The scene he saw made him stop in horror for one long second. Fortunately, his sons charged straight past him and toward their sister.

Lucy was facing off against a ferociously snarling, snapping dog that had gotten loose. It was nearly as big as she was. She stood between the dog and an obviously terrified young woman, who'd evidently been carrying her marketing home when she encountered the dog.

"For shame, Sir!" Lucy was rebuking the dog, holding the walking stick up in front of her, ready to strike. "Where are your manners? Bad. Badly done!"

The dog's ears came up for a second, and it whined, before lowering into a crouch, ready to spring. The growls seemed half-hearted now, though.

" _Down_ ," Lucy insisted, and the ears came up again, and the crouch lolled into lying down, despite the snow. The dog whined, apparently confused.

By this time, Edmund and Peter had reached the little tableau, and Peter gently removed the walking stick from Lucy's hand, though he kept an eye on the dog as he did so. It stayed where it was, eyes on Lucy. Edmund gathered up the lady's bags and quickly walked her around the dog and his siblings, and urged her to get home. Just as they reached the corner, they met with a sweaty man, who looked frantic. "Have you seen a dog?" He panted. "Brutus got out of the yard."

"We have," Edmund said severely. "It quite terrorized this young woman, and nearly savaged my sister. It's round the corner, with my brother."

"Sorry, frightfully sorry," the man gasped to the young woman, who nodded a surprised acceptance, gave the whole lot of them a bewildered look, and hastened her steps toward her home.

Edmund turned back to his brother and sister. Their father and the dog's owner reached them at about the same time. Peter was carefully standing between Lucy and the dog, who was alternating between half-hearted growls and whines. The girl was not screaming, and this evidently confused the dog. Joseph was reading off a tirade to the man, who looked very contrite.

"I'm terribly sorry. He's a guard dog, and he slipped out of the yard, and—hey! Little girl, don't put your _hands_ near him!"

Lucy had crouched down and was reaching toward the dog, speaking very quietly to it. "He won't hurt me," she said calmly. "He has just forgot his manners. I'm sure he really knows better than to run off and snarl at people who are not doing him any harm."  
"Lucy, it's a strange dog. Get back." Her father said curtly, and she looked up, surprised by the vehemence in his voice. But at the inflexible tone in his voice she obeyed, stepping back. "Peter, do you have control of the dog?" Mr Pevensie asked.

"I can keep it from hurting Lucy, if it thinks to do so, sir," Peter said, raising the stick to the ready. "But I don't think it will. It's calmer now."

Everyone was surprised when Joseph suddenly grabbed the dog's owner by the collar and dragged him up the three or so inches of height difference between them, so that Mr Pevensie and the man were eye to eye.

"Do you see my little girl, there?" He asked fiercely, shaking the man.

"Ah—ah—yes—"

"Do you understand that this is my first Christmas with my little girl in _three years_? With any of my children? And because you do not know how to control your dog, we could have had a disaster on our hands. At the very least, my little girl would have had to watch one of her neighbors be torn apart by _your dog._ "

"Oh, he wouldn't have—" the man blustered, but Joseph shook him again.

"He might have." Joseph said coldly. "And you know it, too, or you would not have thought your dog might bite her hands just now."

"I'm—I'm—sorry—" the man gibbered. "I'll keep a better eye on him, I promise."

"You'd do better to ensure your dog is properly trained," Mr Pevensie said tightly, and with a glance at his children, bit off whatever else it was he would have said.

He let the man down, but Peter could tell, by the way his hands curled into fists, he wished he could teach the man a more permanent lesson. But Mr Pevensie shrugged off the feeling, seized Lucy and Edmund by the hands, and started back through the snow toward the couse, saying only, "Come, Peter," before turning away.

Peter paused in the street long enough to watch the man slip a lead onto the dog and lead it away around the corner.

As soon as they entered the hosue, Joseph grabbed Lucy and shook her slightly, then crushed her to him in a hug. "Lucy, Lucy, what were you _thinking_? You could have been mauled, or killed."

"She never can leave someone in distress," Edmund said, a hint of humor in his voice.

"Next time, grab an umbrella," Peter suggested, apparently taking his sister's near demise in stride. "At least an umbrella has a metal point."

Joseph gaped at his sons for a second. "And just what were you two going to do if the dog had attacked?"

"Fought it off," they replied in unison.

"But Lucy had things reasonably in control," Edmund added. "She may run off in a hurry, but at least she usually thinks on her feet."

"Thinks? What thought went into putting herself in danger?" Mr Pevensie nearly yelled.

"She did grab a stick," Peter said. "And Lu's got a way with animals, generally. The dog did calm down."

Joseph sighed, as the adrenaline stopped rushing. "Well, I suppose everyone's all right. And I'm glad you went to someone's aid, Lucy, but next time could you please call for me before you go charging off?"

"I'll try," Lucy said contritely. "I didn't mean to worry you, honestly."

"No." He bussed the top of her head. "I'm sure you didn't."  
Later when they were inside, and Peter was making some chocolate to warm them up, Edmund said, "Dad. Are we going to tell Mother about this?"

It was a good question. Well, no harm had come of it, after all, and Margaret had only just begun to relax about her children's 'oddities.' "No," he said slowly. "I think it would just worry her unnecessarily, don't you agree?"

"That's what I was thinking," Peter said. "Though if she asks us I'll tell her the truth."

"Let's try not to have her ask, then," Joseph said hastily, suddenly thinking that if Margaret thought one of her children might be more inclined to die under their father's watch, she'd simply never let any of them out of her sight again.

The War had changed them all in different ways, and Joseph was beginning to realize that Margaret's alteration was showing itself in an overwhelming anxiety about her children's lives and their futures. He'd try not to add to that burden if he could.

* * *

Please let me know what you think, good or bad. It'll take fifteen seconds to drop a line in a review box. I promise!


	4. Eustace in Finchley

As established in my timeline (at the head of the first chapter) I think there was supposed to be a bigger gap between the canonical timeline established in the first three books. Most of the books reference events in LWW happening "years ago" during the War (as in the Second World War) and the Pevensies feel much older in PC and especially VODT than they do in the beginning of LWW. Part of this, of course could be chalked up to the maturity given them by being the rulers of Narnia for years, but I think part of it is simply time passing in England and the kids growing up in this world.

Lucy is about 13 here, Edmund 14, Eustace 12. The following story takes place between LWW and PC, which I'm thinking has about a two-year gap between, so this will be about a year and a half after the last Christmastime story. 

* * *

Lucy took a moment to remind herself to be kind, and patient, and good.

Though the presence of Eustace in the house certainly made her wish to be unkind and impatient and… and… well, just as rotten to Eustace as he was to her and Edmund.

Hot angry thoughts buzzed in her head like swarming bees. Aslan wouldn't like that she was entertaining those thoughts, she knew, but when she had to think of going down and sitting across the breakfast table from Eustace, well, Aslan seemed very, very far away.

She did feel just the littlest bit worse for Edmund. Peter too, since they had to share their room with him, but mostly her pity was for Edmund.

Edmund had been kicked out of his bed at the beginning of Eustace's visit, as Aunt Alberta insisted that her Eustace Clarence's delicate constitution would be irreparably harmed if he slept for five weeks on a camp bed, which would be too close to the floor (and drafts) and was liable to collapse and bruise him head to toe, anyway.  
 _If they are so concerned with drafts,_ Lucy thought, when she heard this, _then why is Aunt Alberta so worried about there not being too many blankets on the bed, and insist on having the window open at night, regardless of the weather?_ She was smarter than to ask any of this aloud, however.  
"And my Eustace Clarence has such _fine_ skin, very prone to bruising," Aunt Alberta had tutted, causing her brother Joseph to roll his eyes when she couldn't see him. "You will need to make sure he has his vitaminized nerve food, to keep his strength up."

"Don't you think you're coddling the boy, just a bit?" Joseph asked, and Alberta's eyes had flashed with anger.

"Coddling! No! My precious boy is _special_ and needs _special_ care. You are fortunate enough to have spare children; I have only Eustace Clarence. Do you not remember how sickly he was as a baby?"

Edmund had muttered to Lucy, _"Was?"_ when they heard this, and they both laughed.

Eustace, though, heard them, or at least guessed they were laughing at him, since he glared daggers at the two Pevensies who were present. When their father glanced at them, though, they both had perfectly open and innocent expressions on their faces.

Joseph elected to not take offense at Alberta's insinuation that any of his children could be considered 'spares' or 'replacements' for one another, as though they were buttons or bottles or something else easily swapped out.

He turned back to Alberta, and was not terribly surprised when she next gave him a booklet of all of the various dangers Eustace Clarence was prone to, the various illnesses he would undoubtedly contract if he didn't adhere to the timetable listed in the booklet, the schedule of assorted medicines and elixirs which were absolutely imperative to Eustace Clarence's continued existence, the list of items that he was allergic to, or probably allergic to, or could possibly develop an allergy to, etc.

Eventually Uncle Harold, who'd hardly entered the house and had said as little as he usually did, came and took her away. After Eustace had shook hands with "Harold" and "Alberta," and wished them a good trip, the house went quiet again. The Pevensies who were present (Mr Pevensie, Lucy, and Edmund) stood looking at their temporary houseguest, rather in the same manner as a house full of foxes might greet a baby skunk that wandered into their den.

"Well," Joseph said, in tones of forced cheer, "Why don't you and Eustace go up to your room, Edmund, and get his things settled in? Peter should be back from the library soon, and Susan and Mother will be back from the market, and we can all tuck in to a good supper. How's that?"

"Certainly," Edmund said, and picked up one of Eustace's several bags. "Bring your other things, Eustace, I'll show you to our room."

Eustace looked a little aghast that he was being asked to carry his bags upstairs, so Lucy chirped, "I'll grab one of them, you get the other," and followed Edmund. Eustace was left with no other options, so grabbed his last bag and proceeded to lug it up the stairs. Either it was very heavy, or Eustace was not very strong, for he bumped it off of most of the stairs on his way up.

Joseph watched them straggle up the stairs, sighed a little, and returned to his study, keeping an ear out for any squabbles.

At least Eustace was generally a quiet sort of boy, if unimaginative. He shouldn't cause any more tumult in the house. No more than usual, at least.

Though, for the boy's own sake, Joseph would try to get him out of doors, as his pallor wasn't delicate, as Alberta liked to think; it was unhealthy. There was a difference. His own Edmund was cursed with exceptionally pale skin, which only freckled slightly and then burnt, but Edmund's paleness had health shining through, health born of hours spent working outside in the garden, or running about with Lucy, or practicing boxing with Peter.

As Eustace had no siblings to encourage him outside to play like a normal boy, Joseph hoped that perhaps his cousins could provide the same outlet. Perhaps even make friends with him.

There was a muffled thud overhead, and a squawk from Eustace, followed by a sarcastic drawl from Edmund, and Lucy's behind-her-teeth laugh.

"Oh, calm _down_ , Eustace," she said, and her voice was much clearer (she must have stepped out into the hall), "Your precious books didn't slide far. Here, I'll—oh, I thought you said you _liked_ reading!" she interrupted herself.

"I do. Those are _decent_ sorts of books to read, with things it's useful to know." From his tone, Joseph could _tell_ the boy had folded his arms and put his little, pointed nose in the air. "None of the silly babyish things _little kids_ are reading."

Lucy sounded doubtful. " 'Understanding the Modern Scientific Method'? 'Model Schools of the Colonies and Far East'? Oh, Eustace," and she sounded quite sympathetic, "Does Experiment House give you things to study over the summer hols?"

"No," Edmund sounded petulant. "I just like reading those. One of the other boys tried to give me some piece of American trash—something about a Yankee at Court—and then another suggested I read some stone sword thingy, but it was all twaddle. Baby stuff. None of it was about anything _real,_ or _useful_. Clearly they were only trying to drag me down to their level."

"You didn't like _The Sword in the Stone?_ " Lucy sounded horrified. It was one of her favorites. "Oh, Eustace, you don't like _reading_. You just like _facts._ "

"And what's wrong with facts?" Eustace demanded. "They help me get top marks, and all my masters know I'm the smartest boy in my class. Alberta told me so."

"Nothing's wrong with facts," Edmund put in. "Learning as much as you can is wonderful. But facts are only good so far as you can _use_ them. It's like rocks. It's all very well to have a lot of them, but they're only really of use when you build something out of them, you see."

"I _don't_ see," Eustace replied stiffly. "You're both just jealous of my being able to read such grown-up books. I would wager neither of _you_ have ever read something half so grown-up."

"Who would want to?" asked Lucy, who sounded as though she somehow _did_ have experience reading 'grown up' doocuments. Joseph thought that was curious, but dismissed the thought.

She continued, "They're not really enjoyable to read, if useful. Not enjoyable for me, anyway," she added hastily. "I suppose if _you_ like them, well, that's good enough. I was just surprised you chose to bring them along for the summer holidays."

"Well, if you run out of deadly boring stuff to read, I'm sure Peter has some advanced algebra books you can borrow. Or perhaps some charts of foreign imports and exports." Edmund suggested, and Joseph, listening below, could tell he was laughing. "But for now, let's get washed up and ready for supper."

* * *

Susan and Mrs Pevensie arrived home not long after this. Susan gave her mother a martyred look and immediately offered to get supper started (she knew Eustace certainly wasn't going to volunteer to help).

When Peter walked in, Lucy could tell by the set of his shoulders that he'd forgotten Eustace was arriving today. She seized his hand and dragged him into the parlor before he could 'remember' something he'd left at the library and leave.

"Well, how is he?" Peter sighed.

"He's Eustace." Lucy rolled her eyes. "He's reminded me he's a vegetarian twice, in that annoying superior way of his; he's chiseled Edmund out of his own bed already; and he's brought just the most dreadful books to read."

"You? Maligning a book?" Peter goggled at her. "I never thought I'd see the day. They _must_ be dreadful."

"He says they're _useful_ sorts of books." Lucy made a face. "I don't know how much use knowing about schools in China is, though."

"Perhaps we can smuggle him onto a boat heading there and be rid of him that way," Peter said thoughtfully.

Lucy laughed.

Peter smiled at her, and reminded her, "He is a guest, even if he _is_ rather beastly. We'll just have to grin and bear—oh, hello, Eustace. How was your trip down?"

"Mar— _Aunt_ Margaret says you're to come to the table," Eustace muttered, and turned back toward the kitchen.

Lucy turned to Peter, eyes wide. "Do you think he heard you say he was beastly?"

"Don't care if he did," he snorted. "He is, after all. Perhaps hearing the truth would knock some of that undeserved arrogance off of him."

"You always _did_ enjoy taking the wind out of blowhards' sails."

"Only when you didn't skewer them with a sharp word and an innocent expression. Your big eyes were really always an unfair advantage, you know."

"It's not my fault they looked at me and saw someone to pat on the head, and looked at you and saw someone to fight," Lucy replied. "Your fault for growing up to be so big."

"Fighting giants does make one grow," Peter chuckled. "But let us go and rescue our royal brother and sister from our ignoble interloper, dear sister."

"Gladly," Lucy laughed, and they went in to eat. 

* * *

It was now the beginning of Eustace's third week of his five-week stay, and Lucy again reminded herself to be patient with her odious cousin. So far, he'd spent two days sulking that he hadn't brought his cards and pins for collecting beetles, and no one would give him the materials to do so.

Susan had flatly refused to let him have any of her sewing needles.

"It's bad enough I wouldn't ever get them back," she told her mother, "but the use he wants to put them to! Ugh!"

"Where is he finding beetles, anyway?" Mrs Pevensie asked. "I can't imagine those around here are any different from those in Cambridge."

"Oh, down in the park by the stream, I guess."

Just then the back door flew open, and Lucy stomped into the kitchen. Margaret exclaimed, and Susan stared: the girl was half-covered in mud.

"What on earth happened? Don't move, Lucy, you'll track mud all over the house."

"It's Eustace and his stupid bugs," Lucy replied, and she sounded close to tears. "He just kept going _on_ about them, so today I said I'd help him catch some. I thought maybe if he got to do something he _liked_ he'd be happier. And then he found one he didn't know, and he trapped it, and I thought that perhaps he was getting a good look at it so he could identify it later. Then he asked if I had a hairpin on me." She stopped.

"But what then, Lucy, dear?" Margaret asked, wetting a dishtowel to try to wipe off some of the mud. She wasn't very successful; the mud was very thick.

"So I gave him one of my hairpins, and—he tried to _stab_ the poor thing with it! There was no reason to do that! He has nowhere to keep it, anyway!"

"That can't be all," her sister said, pulling a clump of mud out of Lucy's hair. "You're quite upset."

"W-well, I shouted at him to not be cruel, and—he _threw_ the beetle at me!"

Susan and Margaret shared an understanding look. Lucy was incredibly brave in a lot of situations, but most insects larger than a bumblebee made her rather go to pieces.

"But how did you end up covered in mud?"

"When I ducked, I somehow slipped and fell into a half-wet patch of earth. Ed was coming, looking like a thundercloud, so I cleared out and came home."

"Didn't Eustace try to—never mind." Susan said. "Gosh, you must have found the worst possible place to fall, though, Lu. This stuff is sticky."

"Susan, go up and get Lucy's robe. She'll just have to get out of these wet clothes here," Margaret said. "Otherwise we'll be picking up mud through the house for days."

"I'm sorry, Mother," Lucy said.

"I know it was an accident." Her mother soothed her. "But let me lock the door and close up the curtains so you can get into your robe quickly. Then I can just throw these clothes right into the washing bin."

"I'll wash them," Lucy volunteered. "Mud is awful."

"Don't worry about it now," she said. "We'll work on it together."

Lucy was out of the clothes, into her robe, and back up in her and Susan's room getting cleaned up and putting fresh clothes on when the back door rattled.

"Why's the door locked?" came Edmund's voice. "Come on, someone let me in."

"Sorry, Ed," Susan apologized, letting him in. "We had to—"

"Don't care," he cut her off, and she realized he looked quite angry. "Where's Mother and Father?"

"Why, Father's still at the university, and Mother is in the laundry." Edmund pushed past her and headed toward the laundry room door. "What on earth…"

"Mother, I'm not going to apologize, and Father can whip me if he likes." Edmund said to Margaret, with no preamble. "I don't care if he's my cousin, I don't care if he's smaller and younger than me—"

"What is this all about, Edmund?" Margaret shoved Lucy's muddy clothes deeper into the soaking bin, and came out into the kitchen. "Sit down and tell me."

"It's that rotter, Eustace." Edmund said. "I was playing ball with one of my friends in the park when I saw Eustace and Lucy come along. Eustace was looking for bugs or something, and Lucy was keeping him company. He said something that upset her, she shouted at him, he shouted back, and then that little louse _tripped_ her into the mud."

"What? Are you sure?"

"I watched him check where the mud was deepest, just before."

"But what did _you_ do?"

"Just after Lucy fell, he stepped forward and was _laughing_ at her for flinching at a bug, and falling into the mud, and all. I don't think Lu realizes she was tripped. And when he stepped forward he deliberately ground some of the dirt in with his shoe. I _think_ he stepped on her, a little. Is she all right?"

"She's fine," his mother waved it off. "Now. What have you done that you feel I will demand an apology for?"

"Billy and I both saw all this, and we went tearing over to help Lucy. She was already on her way home when we got there, so we grabbed Eustace. I shoved him first, and then Billy sat on him while I got in a good talking-to, and then he had the gall to make fun of Lucy for being upset about the beetle, and the mud, and all. So we shoved him into the deepest puddle of mud we could find."

"Edmund!"

"I won't apologize for it. That kid doesn't understand how to see things from other people's perspectives, and he always thinks the worst of others." Edmund sputtered. "Can you believe he thought _Lucy_ was trying to sabotage his insect collecting, when she wouldn't give up one of her hairpins to skewer some creature? Maybe having mud up his nose will make him understand that his behavior is far from admirable."

"Oh, Edmund," Margaret sighed. "I will have to talk to your father about this. You know better than to go about pushing smaller boys around."

"I _didn't_ give him a black eye, which was my first inclination," he informed her. "As it is, he's just wet and dirty. And crying. I don't suppose we could lock the back door again?"

His mother gave him a look, and pointed. "Up to your—oh. No. That won't do. Go sit in the parlor until your father comes home. I don't want you or Eustace to encounter each other until we have come up with a suitable punishment."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Susan, go check on Lucy. I want to know if that boy really _did_ step on her."

"Certainly."

As the kitchen finally quieted, Margaret sighed and picked up her now cold cup of tea. And they had three more weeks of Eustace to get through, too.

She hoped Joseph had some suggestions.

* * *

Joseph did not have any suggestions. Any reasonable ones, anyhow.

"Joseph," Margaret said, exasperated. "You are supposed to come up with _realistic_ punishments, not egg on your fourteen-year-old son."

"I'd have pushed Eustace into the stream!" Joseph said, sitting back in the chair at his desk. "That little rat of a nephew would have deserved it, and—"

There came a soft rap at the door. Both parents turned. "Come in," Joseph called.

Peter's golden head poked around the doorframe. "May I speak with you?"

"Certainly."

"I couldn't help noticing the… tension… at the supper table," Peter began. "And I've talked it over with Su and Ed and Lu, and tried to talk it over with Eustace, and I think things are mostly all right."

"Peter, I know you love him, but we cannot let your brother bully his cous—"

"He wasn't bullying, Father," Peter said. "He was defending Lucy. You'll never get Ed to think otherwise, and believe me, even if he thinks things through very quickly, he _does_ weigh the potential consequences of any actions he takes." He chuckled. "Besides, in a way, Ed was defending Eustace, too."

"How's that?" his father asked.

"You've never seen Lucy _really_ riled up." Peter said simply. "But when she does, she's as tenacious as a badger, and as fierce as a lioness, and she can be pretty firm when it comes to handing out just deserts. And Eustace wanting to skewer a beetle _alive_ —well. I don't think she'd have minded half so much if he'd been planning on killing it with camphor before putting a pin through it. It was the fact that the beetle would have been alive when he skewered it that got her upset the most, I think."

"I can see that." Margaret said.

"So if Lucy had had a chance to get up and get at Eustace, he might have ended up with a black eye, not just muddy hair. He got off easy. Both Ed and I have convinced him of _that_ , at least for now, so I think he'll leave Lucy alone." He chuckled. "Though he sputtered at the idea that anyone, let alone a girl, would ever think of hitting him. Funny, I'd have thought _most_ people who met him have tried to hit him at one point or another."

Margaret shook her head. "I just don't know what crazy ideas Alberta has put in that boy's head."

"That's just the problem. Alberta has made him all head, and no heart." Peter said, and he actually sounded sympathetic. "And at this point, it will take something pretty significant for him to understand that it's not an asset."

"Well, I think it's only fair our three muddy miscreants have to scrub all the mud out of the clothes," Joseph suggested. "And then scrub the laundry room clean."

"That sounds fair," his wife agreed, and Peter smiled.

"And that way none of them can say one of the others is getting unfair treatment. Very clever, Dad."

Joseph made a show of straightening his shirt cuffs. "Your old Dad has a _few_ tricks, you know."

Later that night, the four Pevensie children met in the girls' room.

"Three more weeks," Edmund was moaning. "How will we survive?"  
Peter gave him a hard look. "I suggest _you_ stay clear of him as much as you can, or Father _will_ whip you. You got off easy, you know."

"Probably because Father wanted to push Eustace in the mud himself," Susan opined. "But really, Ed, that wasn't very fair-minded of you."

"It was perfectly fair-minded," Edmund protested. "He pushed Lucy in the mud, so I pushed him in the mud. Perfectly equitable. Not," he added, "that it's tempered him in the least. He's in our room reading one of those awful boring books he brought with him."

"Can you believe he doesn't like _The Sword in the Stone?_ " Lucy asked. "No, wait, I can. Never mind. But really—what would he say if he knew we used to read 'grown up' things all the time? Treaties and proposals and petitions—"

"—and law books and treatises—" Edmund put in.

"And alliance proposals, tourney invitations, political documents—" Susan ticked off on her fingers.

"…and strategy and battle plans, and Court documents…" Peter said, and sighed. "I never envied you, Ed, reading all that law and security stuff. I think Eustace would be _more_ shocked we liked 'childish things' too, even though we were kings and queens. Stories and poems and songs."

"Well, at least Eustace's books can't be as bad as Calormene poetry." Lucy wrinkled her nose. "And perhaps he'll spend the rest of the hols reading his books and leave the rest of us alone."

Peter huffed. "Imagine, him pushing you into the mud. Can you imagine what Orieus would have done?"

"Besides chased him around the Cair, and beat him black and blue with the flat of his sword?" Edmund asked dryly.

" _I'd_ have thrown him in the dungeon." Peter replied darkly.

"You would not." Lucy told him. "Cair Paravel didn't have any dungeons."

"Well, I would have built them, and then thrown him in."

"Orieus would have helped you there," Susan said. "He'd be muttering about attacking a Queen of Narnia the whole time, and—"

"Narnia? What's that?" an unwelcome voice came in. They all turned. Eustace was standing smirking in the door. "Are you all telling baby stories to one another?"

"Oh, go _away,_ Eustace, do." Susan replied, in the put-upon tone she'd borrowed from her mother. "It's nothing to do with you."

"Well, if you're all going silly," he smirked, "it's my duty to keep on top of it. We can't have a bunch of madmen running about."

"We're just… remembering some things that happened while we were away during the War," Lucy said.

"And they don't concern you, so go away." Edmund added firmly.

"Oh, that's right. You ran away like frightened children during the War, didn't you? No wonder you're telling one another fairy stories."

"Eustace," Susan said, in reproving tones. "The evacuation was mandatory. They were _bombing London_. We had to leave."

"You were all safely tucked away in Cambridge," Edmund said dismissively. "You don't understand what it was like."

"I know our evacuating all the cities only gave the Jerries heart," Eustace replied. "What must they have thought! Whole droves of people fleeing the cities when nothing had even happened yet."

"Oh, and you'd have stayed and fought, Mr Pacifist?" Peter asked sarcastically. "The first order of policy when you have an attack on a major city, is to get the noncombatants safely out of reach, if you can." He informed the boy. "Otherwise what's the point? A city doesn't do any good if you have no people to live there after a battle is through, and a war is won."

"As though you know anything about it," Eustace scoffed. "So what's this Narnia?"

"Nothing that concerns you." Lucy said flatly, and Eustace sneered.

"Did you come up with the name, Lucy? It sounds awfully silly. And you were all pretending you were kings and queens? What bosh. Why, it doesn't even begin to make _sense._ Everyone knows there can only be one King or Queen at a time."

"There is Someone who knows better than you, then," Edmund replied stiffly. "And it's not for us to gainsay Him."

"Well, _I_ think you're all quite mad," Eustace informed them loftily. "And I don't think I shall trouble myself about you any more."

"Good riddance," Edmund muttered. "Wonderful. Now would you _go away_?"

"But on the other hand—"

" _Go away_ , Eustace," all four of them said, in concert, and finally he left.

Lucy fell over onto her bed. "Aslan, give me strength," she said into the bedclothes. " _Three more weeks._ Ugh."

"Don't let's even think about it," Susan said, sighing. "We just have to be patient, and find things to do, and hopefully the time will just fly by."

"I never thought I'd have a reason to look _forward_ to going back to school, but there it is," Edmund said glumly.

* * *

Most of the next week did go by quickly. It took Lucy, Edmund, and Eustace two days to get all of the mud out of the clothes to Mrs Pevensie's satisfaction, and then half of another day to clean everything in the laundry room. Eustace kept a muttering grumble under his breath the whole time, and Lucy and Edmund mostly ignored him.

Lucy hummed Narnian songs under her breath, and occasionally Edmund would join in, until Eustace burst out in protest that they were humming things he didn't know, and humming was silly, and what good did it do, anyway.

Edmund and Lucy just laughed at this and went on with their work.

At last the next weekend arrived, and everyone was surprised when Mr Pevensie suggested that everyone—everyone, from Mother to Eustace—should go out fishing and on a picnic that day.

The day had dawned beautifully, and looked to be sunny all day.

Most of them enthusiastically agreed, and ran to get changed into play clothes that wouldn't take much hurt from getting wet or dirty. Eustace lingered around in the hall until Edmund realized he probably hadn't brought anything that shabby with him. If, that is, he even owned play clothes.

Sighing, he thrust a pair of older trousers and a comfortably soft shirt at Eustace. "Here, you can borrow these. They're a couple of years old, and should fit you all right."

Eustace glared at him, but took the clothes.

Everyone else was quite merry as they trooped the mile and a half to the preferred fishing hole. Lucy and Susan were carrying the fishing tackle, Peter and Edmund were carrying the picnic basket, full of good things, and Eustace had been pressed into service carrying the blankets to sit on. Mr and Mrs Pevensie strolled ahead of them, arm in arm, talking to one another.

"Oi, Dad," Peter called, clearly joking. "Why aren't you carrying anything?"

"Father's privilege," Joseph called back. "Why do you think we had four children? To carry things, of course. In any case I am terribly busy escorting your mother, can't you see?"

They all got a laugh out of that. Soon enough they arrived at the place, and got settled in.

Mrs Pevensie had brought some crochet to work on, as she wasn't a fisherperson. Susan sat by her, talking over some of the chores around the house that needed to be done before they all left for the school term, reminding her that all four of them would be at boarding school this term.

Mr Pevensie settled in with his pole, and Peter helped Eustace get set up. Of course, he'd never fished before, and he seemed rather squeamish when it came time to put the worm on the hook. After he'd lost the third worm, Lucy and Edmund exchanged a look, and volunteered to go dig up more nightcrawlers. Peter gave them a 'thanks a lot' look, and patiently tried to explain, again, that the worm needed to be very firm on the hook, or the fish would just tug it off rather than taking the hook in their mouths.

When they were in the woods a little way, Lucy glanced at Edmund. "Is he being very beastly in your room?"

He lifted one shoulder in response. "No more than usual, sister dear, but thanks for asking."

"I just wish," Lucy said, as she poked at a likely dark patch of earth, searching for worms, "that we could do something to _help_ him."

"What do you mean?"

"Well…" Lucy seemed reluctant to speak. "Forgive me, Ed, but Eustace is a bit like you were. You know. Before."

Instead of flaring with anger, her brother sighed. "I know. It's what has kept me from just knocking him over any number of times. _I_ had Aslan. Poor Eustace just has us."

"And," Lucy added reflectively, "consider how different our families are, too."

"I know!" Edmund laughed. "Hard to think that Dad and Aunt Alberta are brother and sister."

"You don't suppose that will ever happen to _us?_ That we'd grow so different from one another?"

"No fear," Edmund said immediately. "Not so long as we remind each other of Narnia and Aslan and how we are all to live as Kings and Queens, where ever we are. As Peter pointed out, when He told us 'once a king or queen in Narnia, always a king or queen,' He said nothing at all about it applying _only_ in Narnia."

She smiled. "I suppose you're right." She exclaimed as she found a likely patch of earth, and dug her hands in, searching for the squirming bait.

"Now, as for Eustace…" Edmund tapped his pursed lips thoughtfully. "You're not wrong that his situation is something like mine a few years ago, though I'm not sure that helps us here. I can't tell you exactly what He said, because a lot of it was just Him, His presence, you know? And I'd really already started to realize just how vile I was being, purely _because_ of how vilely the witch and her minions were treating me. And then when I heard that stone knife being sharpened…" he shuddered. "Well, you might say that woke me completely up." He knelt beside her, and helped dig the worms out.

"Well, we're not going to treat him vilely, much as he might deserve it." Lucy said. "And I don't think holding a knife to his throat will make him do anything but go running to Aunt Alberta."

"No," agreed Edmund. "Though I will admit it was satisfying to make him go splat into the mud. I think," he sighed, "we're really going to just have to make up our minds to be as nice to him as we can bear to."

"I'm not objecting—it's what I'd rather do anyway, most of the time—but why?"

"Well, part of what turned me back to you was that I knew, deep in me, that you and Peter and Susan really loved me and wanted the best for me. And when I was feeling particularly miserable—before Narnia I mean—I'd do things to make you all angry with me or shout at me or cry, almost like I wanted someone else to be as miserable as I, but I didn't dare to try to be as happy as you. I think I felt I didn't deserve to be as happy, and then it all got muddled and mixed up inside until all I could feel was that misery, and I couldn't see a way out.

"And then of course the witch basically rewarded me for being miserable and awful, which just drove me down further and—well, you know the rest. It's very difficult to put into words."

"I think I understand," Lucy said.

"Good. So what I'm getting at, is let's treat Eustace as nicely as we can stand to, and at the very least we won't be indulging him in making _us_ as miserable as _he_ is."

"All right, I suppose I can see that. And I know it's what _He_ would want. Even if I rather do hope Eustace falls in the pond today."

Edmund smiled at her as they stood, hands full of wriggling worms.

When they returned to the pond, Susan and their mother were still on the blanket, Eustace had fallen into a sort of silent sulk, Mr Pevensie had apparently fallen asleep, and Peter was drawing in a fine fish with a satisfied exclamation.

"Oh, well _done,_ Peter!" Lucy exclaimed. "We've brought more worms."

"Good," Peter said. "You can take my pole, and Ed, you take Eustace's. I'm going to show him how to clean a fresh-caught fish."

"What?" Eustace's head snapped around. "Clean? It just came out of the water, isn't it already clean?"

"Not… that sort of cleaning," Edmund told him with half a grin, as he took the pole from Eustace's slack grip. "Just go with Peter, he'll show you."

Lucy silently mouthed 'good luck' to Peter as she took his pole and handed him the knife set. Peter winked, and led Eustace off into the woods a ways, where he knew a good flat rock was, just the perfect height for cleaning small game.

"What is all that about?" Mrs Pevensie called over to them.

Lucy's laugh tinkled back to them. "Peter is going to show Eustace how to clean a fish."

Susan's nose wrinkled. "Better him than me. That's such a messy business."

"Not _so_ messy, when you know how to do it properly. And you simply refused to _learn_ ,Susan," Edmund replied comfortably, settling back onto his elbows and keeping a lazy eye on his line.

"Learn? Susan hardly ever goes fishing," their mother objected. "When would she have had to learn? When did _you_ learn?"

Susan, Lucy, and Edmund exchanged quick, slightly alarmed looks. "Er—when—" Edmund began hesitatingly.

"When we were in the country during the War," Lucy said. "Didn't we tell you we just did and learned lots of things while we were at the Professor's? Peter, Edmund, and I learned how to clean fish and game—well, Peter already knew some from Father," she said. "But we all learned a great many things while we were there."

"Oh, that makes sense," Margaret nodded, and turned to Susan. "But where were you, dear, if you weren't out fishing with the rest of them?"

The entirely truthful answer was that Susan had been at home ruling, while the rest of them were on a hastily thrown-together campaign to quell robbers in the northwest.

But of course she couldn't tell her mother the entirely truthful answer, could she?

"I was helping to finish an embroidered tapestry," Susan replied. "There was a deadline to have it complete, so they really needed my help. I learnt quite a bit about embroidery, though I suspect my skills are rather rusty from disuse," she said lightly. "We all learned a great deal during our time away."

"Oh, tapestry," their mother sighed. "I'm surprised anyone could even find enough materials to complete one, during the War. We used to work on altar cloths in the convent school I attended as a child," she reminisced. "It was such _exacting_ work, but so lovely to see everyone's contributions in one beautiful whole, when the project was finished. I hope you got as much satisfaction out of the project."

"Oh, I did. In fact, I—"

There was a rather high-pitched squeal of disgust from the direction Peter and Eustace had gone, loud enough that Mr Pevensie awoke with a start.

"What on earth's that?" He asked blearily.

"I think Peter just split his fish open to get at the guts," Lucy said.

"Or made Eustace do it," Edmund put in.

"What? Oh," and Joseph started chuckling. "I wasn't going to teach someone as, ahem, _delicate_ as Eustace how to field dress a fish, but if Peter decided to take on the task, well…" He shrugged, and then grabbed for his pole as he suddenly got a bite. "With any luck we'll have a few fish. Whoa—I'm glad Eustace's yelling woke me, this is a good sized one!"

It was a good sized fish he caught, and a few minutes later Edmund pulled one in, also.

Peter and Eustace trooped back to the rest of them, Eustace looking rather greenish. He sat down and didn't speak to anyone.

"I don't suppose any of you children learned how to put together a campfire?" Margaret asked idly. "It would be nice to have some fresh fish for lunch.  
"Of course," Lucy answered without thinking.

"Certainly," Peter said at the same time.

Margaret started, and stared a little at them. "I was joking, mostly!" she said. "My, but you children must have learned a terrific amount in the country."

"More than you'd believe," Edmund said solemnly.

"Lots of useful things, like how to build a fire," Lucy put in. "Here, Eustace, take my pole. I'll find some rocks if you want to gather kindling, Ed?"

"And I'll get a space ready," Peter said, pulling out his pocketknife and starting to slice a neat square out of the turf.

"What are you children doing?" Joseph asked, as he walked back with his own freshly-gutted fish hanging from one hand.

"They're building a campfire," Margaret answered, sounding bemused. "Do you know how to start a campfire, too, Susan?"

"Oh, yes," Susan replied. "But I'll stay here with you. They've got it in hand."

And indeed the other Pevensies did, and they had a nice small crackling fire going in short order. Edmund had also cut and sharpened some nice straight sticks to skewer the fish on.

When she saw those, Susan exclaimed, and got up. "I'll be right back, I just remembered something," she said, and when she returned not too much later, she had handfuls of freshly-picked herbs, with which to flavor the fish.

"Oh, brilliant, Su!" Lucy said, clapping her hands. "Come on, Eustace, I'll show you how to stuff the fish before you cook it. It's much less messy than cleaning them, I promise."

Eustace grumbled, but allowed himself to be drawn in to the procedure, and in about twenty minutes their little glade was filled with wonderful scents.

Margaret and Susan and Lucy unpacked the picnic basket while Edmund kept a close eye on the fish. With only three fish to go among six people, no one got a lot, but it was a lovely hot addition to all of the cold things they'd packed for their picnic—sandwiches with thick bread, sausage rolls, meat pasties, apple pasties, a thick chunk of cheese, and two bottles of lemonade (and _where_ had Mother got those?).

They all settled down across the blankets, basking in the sun and simply being content. Even Eustace had a less disagreeable look on his face.

Lucy smiled up at the sun, contented, and prayed that Edmund's plan of simply being nice to Eustace had a softening effect on his character. She couldn't think of anything else to do.

And he certainly couldn't get much worse… could he? 

* * *

So, there's the next bit. I don't think I will belabor the 'Eustace is Awful' thing by writing the next two weeks. What I have in mind for next will be set between Prince Caspain and Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and will detail precisely WHY Susan went to America, instead of staying in England.  
Yes, we're going to see the beginning of Susan's slide downward. : (  
But there will also be some Peter and Edmund and Lucy butt-kicking too.


	5. Why Susan Went to America

As someone commented, yes, as explained in my note in chapter one, I've aged them all up a bit. With reasonably logical thoughts behind it, I hope, but if it bothers anyone, just consider this AU, then. : )

Here, you all may think I'm being harsh on Susan, but honestly—I'm going by clues given in the books. I remember Lewis at one point wrote in VODT that Susan "was no good at school work" and "otherwise she was very mature for her age," both of which aspects have good and bad points.

And the bits that we get about her in the Golden Age are… well, not much: she's beautiful, she's gentle, she nearly got Narnia embroiled in a tri-country war (albeit due to picking a bad boyfriend, which could happen to anyone easily dazzled by a smooth talker, I guess). And then in the Last Battle we learn she refuses to acknowledge anything not having to do with being popular and modern, to everyone's disappointment (though I feel sure she came back eventually... I hope so anyway).

*A note, the practice of sending a younger sib with an elder to a party or dance or date or whatever was very common practice in middle class "well brought up" families in the US from the 1910s through the early 1950s (and probably earlier). There are many many memoirs that make casual mention of this practice—indicating it was not an unusual thing. I have no idea if the same practice was used in Britain, but for dramatic purposes here, I'm saying (in this AU at least) it did : )

Later Note: So, this ended up being a good deal darker than I expected it to. I don't dislike how it turned out, but I was surprised at how it did. Anyway I'm just declaring this a near-AU and going forward. As always, let me know what you think!

* * *

Lucy waited on the platform, impatiently craning her neck, searching the crowd for her brothers. They were all on their way back home from school, and this was the transfer station at which they all met before catching the last train home. The wonderfully long summer break stretched ahead of them.

And what a summer it would be! Father had been hired to lecture in America for the next several months, through almost all of summer and extending even in to autumn.

Officially, the Pevensie parents were leaving both Peter and Susan in charge of the house while they were gone, although since Peter was due to leave for intensive tutoring with Professor Kirke within a month, really it meant Susan would be in charge.

Mr and Mrs Pevensie had decided, after much deliberation, that Mrs Pevensie should finally have a long holiday and go with Joseph on his trip. They knew that Susan was very mature, and very sensible, and Mr Pevensie had finally faced up to the fact that at least one of his children was just not suited to going to university, so expecting Susan to work on her lessons over the summer was rather a vain hope.

(Indeed, Mr Pevensie was hard-pressed to say just what Susan _would_ be suited for, when she finished school. Perhaps she could be a shop girl—it was what Margaret had done when she finished school, herself. Margaret pointed out, rather wryly, that Susan would likely catch the eye of some young man or other, and be married within a few years. This rather discombobulated Joseph, and he had for a time some significant difficulty in reconciling the idea of Susan being of an age to work in a shop and of her being of an age to be married. Somehow, he'd never considered that a girl who was of an age to work was of an age to marry.)

But until Peter left, it would be just the four of them together, just like the old times in Narnia. And even when Peter was gone, it would still be very like when they reigned, since there had been numerous times when one or another of them was gone from Cair Paravel for one reason or another.

Only, Lucy had reason to worry about how things might go with Susan in charge, and no Peter to check her. She must speak to her brothers about it. Perhaps they could reassure her—or at least, advise her. She had seen very little of her sister at school this term, but what she'd seen made her uncomfortable.

And there had been that humiliating experience with Susan and her newest best friend, Diane—

She felt heat rush up her face, and pushed the memory aside.

Instead, she raised herself on tiptoe to give herself a slightly better view, but no luck—she saw no Pevensies other than Susan, who was scowling.

"Stop that," her sister hissed, jerking on Lucy's sleeve so she stumbled back on to flat feet. "For goodness' sake, Lucy, you're fourteen, not four. Why can't you behave _normally_ for once?"

"Being normal is boring," Lucy replied lightly, smiling. "Why, in Nar—"

"Don't." Susan's tone was both frosty and superior. "Really. It's bad enough you were blabbing about those silly stories in front of my friends, but to do it on a crowded platform, really. People will think you've lost your wits."

"I didn't realize Diane was there!" Lucy protested. "And they're not silly stories, and you know it. We were just there before this school term started; why, we came back to this very station. Why wouldn't you want to remember your last trip to—"

"Take a hint, Lucy," Susan snapped. "My _last_ time talking about Narnia was last autumn. I'm _done_. Don't you understand? I'm far too old to be talking about little-girl stories about being a princess and pretending to live in a magical land and all that rot. I've got more important things, things in the real world, to think about."

"Like what?" Lucy asked, stung.

Susan frowned at her. "Making my younger sister look and act her age, for one. Honestly. You'd be pretty if you just did something with your hair, instead of keeping it in little kid braids all the time."

Lucy felt suddenly awkward, and tugged one of her braids, eyeing Susan warily. "You—you don't think I look pretty?" It wasn't something she usually worried about, but hearing this opinion from her sister hurt.

"Well," Susan's face softened, and she reached out to gently move Lucy's hand off of the end of her braid. "It's not that you don't look cute, I guess, but it's little-girl cute. You look like you're ten. Then again," she said, as though to herself, "you _act_ like you're ten, so what does it really matter?"

"…Oh," Lucy said, and then really couldn't find anything else to say.

So she settled down, still, beside Susan, shoulders slumped, keeping half an eye out for her brothers. Maybe she didn't have anything to discuss with them at all. Maybe Susan was just growing up faster than Lucy was prepared for, and it wasn't anything to worry about.

But if what Susan was becoming was what Lucy had to look forward to, she'd stay acting ten, thanks.

Eventually Peter and Edmund's train arrived, and there was a round of hugs and a hurried count of bags before the next train, the one taking them home, arrived.

Peter was largely engrossed in some book he was studying, but Edmund gave Lucy a concerned look. "Lu, you feeling all right? You're quiet." He said.

"I'm worried about Susan, Ed," she answered quietly, glancing over at Susan, who was sitting primly on a bench, back straight, hands in her lap, looking smooth and collected and not very much like a girl coming home from school. "She's been… well, different this term."

"Different how?"

"She's got a whole new set of friends from the form that just graduated," Lucy replied. "She won't even talk to her old friends, I don't think. She says she's outgrown them," and her nose wrinkled. "How can you outgrow a friend?"

"Well, it's no crime to make new friends," Edmund said. "Are they bad sorts of girls?"

"Well, no. I don't think. I don't really know any of them."

"All right. Anything else?"

"She hardly speaks to me in school now," Lucy said, looking at the pavement.

"What? Why?"

"I guess I embarrassed her," Lucy admitted. "It was an accident. I went to her room, I thought her roommate was gone, and wanted to ask her about one of those defensive moves they trained us in when we were in Narnia. Ed, she—she—laughed at me. Said I was so adorable, thinking up all these stories about a magical land, and wars and fighting and all. But I could tell she was annoyed at me. And then I heard someone else laughing. It was her friend Diane, sitting in the corner. She told Susan she pitied her, for having such a silly sister who still liked fairy stories." Her cheeks went red as she remembered the condescending voice again. "Then she asked Susan if she were going to egg me on, and Susan said, 'Certainly not, I'm far too sophisticated for that nonsense. And Lucy should know better at her age.' I went back to my room, and…" she shrugged helplessly. "She's hardly spoken to me since then."

Edmund's brow furrowed. "When was this?"

"Early February."

His eyebrows rose. "She hasn't spoken to you in three months?"

"No, it's not that she's _not speaking_ to me," Lucy clarified. "We'll say hello, and she'll check on me at supper sometimes, but we don't _talk_ about things like we used to. And don't bring up Narnia, it puts her in a fearful mood."

"Fearful mood," Edmund snorted. "She's a queen of Narnia, crowned by Aslan himself! Where does she come off trying to pretend it doesn't exist? I should go over and—"

"No, don't!" Lucy stepped in front of him. "If you cause a scene she'll never forgive you."

He rolled his eyes and subsided, instead pulling her toward him and giving her a quick hug. "If you ask me, she's the one acting silly. Forget her comments, she was just trying to impress her friend, I bet. We'll work on her over the summer hols, how's that?"

Lucy felt the first real smile she'd had in some time break over her face. "Thanks, Edmund!"

"And we'll get Peter in on this, too," Edmund said. "Get some real sense into her head."

But Edmund and Peter and Lucy quickly found they had little chance to get to Susan to talk her back into at least acknowledging Narnia was real. The reason for this was that practically as soon as her chores were done, Susan was off with one or another of her friends, reminding her parents that in just a couple of weeks, she certainly would be too busy to see any of them, so she had to get all of her visiting in now.

Mr and Mrs Pevensie didn't see the harm in this, and they were having Susan give up nearly her whole summer to look after her younger siblings, so they permitted it.

Joseph, however, drew the line at allowing her to go to parties at night. All the pleading in the world wouldn't move him on that point. "You are _seventeen_ , Susan, and I know you think you're quite grown-up, but you really aren't. I simply cannot allow you to go somewhere at night, alone, to a party with a lot of other young people. It's just not prudent."

Susan huffed in anger, but didn't dare argue further, at the tone in his voice.

Instead of arguing, she adopted a guerilla tactic of ambushing her parents with introductions to the friends who would be at these parties; offers to telephone the parents who were letting their daughters go to these parties; offers of extra chores to be done, if they'd let her go to just _one_ party.

Perhaps it was her persistence, or perhaps it was that the Pevensies were very occupied making all the necessary arrangements to be out of the country for nearly four months, but eventually Joseph allowed that Susan might go to one party.

"On a few conditions," he said, and her excited expression fell.

"What conditions?"

"You have to be home by ten-thirty," he said, and she shrugged her acceptance of that. She'd expected a curfew.

"It has to be close enough you can walk home safely," and she grimaced a little, but nodded. She had friends who lived within a mile or two, and could go to a party at one of their houses.

"And," Joseph added, pretty sure this last would get a reaction, "you have to take one of your brothers, or your sister, with you as a chaperon."

"What? Oh, Dad, really?" Susan complained. "Peter's all study, study, study. He's become a _bore_. And Ed's no fun, either. And Lucy's just a kid."

"Bore, no fun, or kid. If one of them doesn't go, you don't go."

"Oh, Dad, please—"

"No. That point is nonnegotiable."

She huffed a sigh. "Fine, Peter then. At least he's old enough to carry on an adult conversation."

But as it turned out, Peter wasn't available the night the party was scheduled. "I'm terribly sorry, Su," he answered. "I'm working with a friend on cramming for History, and we can't reschedule because he goes to the seashore the next day. I've already promised."

Edmund, too, was already obliged at Billy's, to finish a project they were working on.

Lucy it was, then, who was about as interested in going to the party as Susan was to have her tag along—which is to say, not much at all.

But Lucy did want her sister to be happy, and it seemed Susan really wanted to go to this party, so she agreed. After all, they'd be back home by ten-thirty, so at worst she'd be sitting bored for a few hours keeping an eye on her big sister.

Susan might deny it, but it was something Lucy had done several times in Narnia, after all, when they'd have some hopeful foreign price over for tea or a chat. She'd could always spend the time reminiscing and comparing Susan's Narnian beaux with her English ones.

* * *

The day of the party arrived, and for once it was Susan in the lead, eagerly charging down the road towards the house where the party was. (She was careful, however, not to muss her rolled and pinned hairdo.) When they were about halfway there, she suddenly turned on one heel and looked at Lucy.

"What? What is it?"

"Oh, you look like such a young _kid_ ," Susan groused. "Here. Hold still for a moment."

She stepped behind Lucy, and pulled the ribbon off of the end of Lucy's braids, unravelling them with her hands quickly. Then she swept the hair together in a loose tail, tied the ribbon around it in a bow, and pulled the tail to fall over her shoulders. She stepped back in front of the startled Lucy and eyed her critically. "That's a lot better. But first…" she considered. "Close your eyes."

"What?"

"Close them." Confused, Lucy did. Then she felt Susan's fingertips tap something against her eyelids and scrub at her cheeks. She blinked her eyes, surprised, just in time to see Susan swoop in with a gleaming red lipstick toward her face.

She ducked. "Susan, no! Mother says I'm too young for make-up!"

"I'm not going to this party with a sister who looks like she's up past her bedtime," Susan replied, jabbing the lipstick at Lucy's mouth. "Now hold still so it doesn't look stupid."

Sighing, Lucy held still and Susan finished drawing the lipstick across her lips. Then she flipped open a compact and made her own lipstick darker, then turned the tiny mirror to Lucy. "There, don't you feel more grown-up?"

Lucy stared at herself in the silver square. Susan had dabbed eye makeup on her lids which somehow made her eyes look bigger, and her cheeks were as flushed as though she'd been running. Her mouth didn't look like her own at all, glistening red like a candied apple. And the long hair spilling around her shoulders made her look much older, too, by three or four years, perhaps.

Then, Susan looked a good deal older than her seventeen years, too, with those darker lips and kohl-darkened lashes fluttering.

"Well?"

"Do I _have_ to wear this?"

"It makes you look more grown up, don't you agree?"

"Erm. Yes, more grown up."

"Aren't you excited? I'm sure no other girls in your form will have gone to a house party over the summer hols."

Well, that was true, and it would be nice to finally have one small thing to have over the other girls, who always seemed to be going out and doing things that Lucy couldn't do. Or, in a few cases, wouldn't do.

She wasn't quite sure what category this party would fall into. Perhaps a new one: something she _shouldn't_ do.

But Susan's excitement was infectious, and she found herself a little excited about attending this party, even if all she was going to do was sit and watch the older teen-agers talk and dance.

She pushed her misgivings aside. _What can it hurt?_ She asked herself. _Susan just doesn't want to look like she has a tagalong little sister. Maybe she wants to look like she brought… a friend?_

Oh, certainly everyone would know Susan'd had to bring her younger sister, but she supposed Susan didn't want everyone's attention drawn to the fact.

Which Lucy couldn't blame her for, really. She'd just do her best to remain unobtrusive and out of the way, and keep an eye on Susan. She suspected the hardest part would be getting Susan to go at ten, so they were home by the curfew.

The party was in full swing when they arrived, and Lucy's eyes widened. When Susan had begged her parents to let her go, she'd described the parties as a close-knit group of friends, getting together at each other's houses to dance to the latest tunes, play a few games, and eat snacks.

 _This_ party was starting to spill outside of the generously-sized house and into the yard, there were so many people. A record player in one part of the house was warring with a radio in another. One young man strolled by holding a beer bottle, whispering to a girl tucked under his arm. Another staggered by, obviously having had something far stronger to drink.

It reminded Lucy just a little of the feast that Silenus had attended, the last time they were in Narnia. Lucy found that without the presence of the Lion, this felt more dangerous, though, for all it was only young men and not godlings. It reminded her of one dark time in Narnia, one she didn't often think on.

Perhaps—perhaps Susan was at the wrong house? It did seem that just about every one of her friends was hosting these get togethers, after all. Perhaps she had got the number wrong. "Susan," she felt compelled to ask, "are you sure this is the right place? I thought Annabeth lived in a row house?"

For a moment, her older sister looked doubtful. "Well, the party moved to Annabeth's cousin Matthew's house. He has more room, obviously." She said appraisingly, looking around at the spacious lawn that surrounded the decent-sized house. "It seems his father, Annabelle's uncle, is a well-respected judge, so usually people don't bother them too much about noise and such," she explained. "And the judge was all too happy to let Matthew have people over. Judge Bricker says having young people around makes him feel less old, you see. It's strange, though, Annabelle says Matthew told her he has trouble getting people to come over here. I can't think why. It's a lovely house, and it's not at all hard to get to... Erm. The house number _is_ 1047, isn't it?"

Lucy peered at the front of the house. "Yes."

Susan's shoulders went back. "We're at the right place, then! Let's go inside. I'm sure things are more in control there."

They were, after a fashion. At least, no one was staggering, but Lucy saw many people with bottles or glasses in hands, or passing around heavy decanters whose amber contents were swiftly disappearing. But there were some of Susan's friends who weren't drinking, too. There _were_ games; she saw one group in a corner apparently playing Blindman's Bluff, although the young women playing did not seem very adept at keeping away from the tall young man who was currently It.

Two rather studious looking young men about Peter's age were engrossed in a chess match on a tiny table in the corner, ignoring the tumult around them. Lucy suspected that if Peter had been the one to come, he'd have quickly joined them.

Through an adjoining doorway, she could see the next room was entirely convulsed in dancing to some fast modern song. An older man—she could tell by the gray in his hair—stood in the doorway with his back to Lucy, watching the dancers. The judge, she supposed.

She was distracted by Susan's tug on her arm. "Come on, there's a little bedroom over here where we can lay our coats and hats." When this had been done, they came out into the hallway and surveyed the room for a moment. Susan let out a little squeal and headed toward Annabelle, hands outstretched in greeting, abandoning Lucy.

Lucy watched them greet one another excitedly. She glanced around. Of course, there was no one she knew here—

And then she saw, to her surprise, someone she did know.

Edmund's friend Billy had two older sisters and two younger brothers. As Billy was Edmund's closest friend, she'd got to know all five over the years. It seemed one of the sisters, Fran, had come to the party, and much like Lucy herself, a younger sibling had been dispatched to serve as chaperon. It was the youngest Fletcher child.

"Hello, Sam," Lucy said, and the nine-year-old's face lit up.

"Lucy! Finally, someone _normal_ has arrived. Mother sent me to keep an eye on Frannie, and Fran insists I stay fifty feet away from her," he said. "It's been boring. Can we sit together?"

"Sure," Lucy shrugged. At least now she'd have someone to talk to, even if it was just Billy's kid brother. As she scanned the room for available seats, she asked, "How did you end up coming here? Don't you live close by?"

"Yes, our house is only five blocks from here. Mother and Dad said Fran could go, but at some point Mother heard something she doesn't much like about Matthew Bricker, so she insisted I come with Fran. She'd have sent Billy, but he and Edmund are working on that soapbox car for this weekend, and Billy insisted they needed to try to finish it tonight. The race is Sunday, you know."

"Yes, I know. That's how I ended up here, too: To keep an eye on Susan, since Edmund is busy." Lucy made a mental note to keep away from Matthew Bricker, if Billy's mother was worried about him. "Which one's Matthew?"

Sam pointed him out, and Lucy nodded to herself. She'd have to try to keep Susan away from him, too, though as it was his house, she wasn't really sure how to do that. Perhaps this was one boy Susan didn't have a crush on—he wasn't as handsome as the boys Susan usually flirted with.

Lucy glanced at the clock on the mantel. It was seven thirty, so two and a half hours to go. That wasn't too bad. Maybe she and Sam could find a checkers set somewhere.

"What exactly are you supposed to do if something happens to your sister, and you need to intervene?" Lucy asked curiously. Sam was pretty young, and small for his age besides.

"Billy says I'm to run like the devil's after me and go get him," he replied. "Home is only a couple of minutes away if I run. But then he said if it wasn't important, I'd wish the devil _was_ after me. I'm half tempted to go running home just to see what happens." Lucy laughed.

Eventually they ended up commandeering a small loveseat, where they could keep an eye on their respective sisters reasonably well. They got a couple of dirty looks from couples looking for a place to neck, which they ignored.

Mostly in turn they were ignored by the party-goers, as well, although Lucy had one moment when a vaguely familiar young man walked past, and did a double take. "You're not _Lucy_ , are you?" He asked her, apparently astonished.

"Why, yes, I am," she answered, surprised. "Do I know you?"

"We've met once. I'm Annabeth's brother, Charles. By Jove! When I looked over, I thought you were Susan's age before I recognized you. Did you do something with your hair?"

Lucy's hands flew to the locks curling down her shoulders. "Oh, Susan fixed my hair. Do you think it looks nice?"

His mouth flattened a little at Susan's name. "Ah. That explains it. No, it looks fine." He looked pained. "Look, do me a favor, and stay on this couch, will you? There's a—" A loud ruckus came from the next room, and he groaned. "It's very tiresome being the only eighteen-year-old who's willing to act like an adult," he muttered to himself, and headed toward the sound, which increased.

"Gee," Sam said, trying to see through the crowd. "What do you suppose is going on?"

"I don't know. Why don't you see if you can find out?" Lucy suggested. If it was anything dangerous, she would make Susan go home immediately. Sam ran off.

Lucy was momentarily left to her own devices. She checked that Susan was still where she'd last seen her, flirting with a college boy whose excessive cologne Lucy could almost smell from here. For good measure, she checked that Fran was where she and Sam had last seen her, as well: talking animatedly with another girl in the doorway to the kitchen. They were both craning their necks to see what was going on in the next room.

She settled back against the loveseat with a sigh, and then nearly jumped out of her skin when a middle-aged man plumped himself down beside her, two glasses in his hands, quite as though he owned the place.

"Hello," he said, smiling past thick glasses at her. "I'm Judge Bricker—Matthew the elder, not Junior."

Ah. He _did_ own the place. "Hello." She smiled at him politely. "You have a lovely home, Judge Bricker."

He tilted his head, greying hair falling into his face. "Are you one of Annnabeth's friends? I don't think I've met you. Oh—here, have some punch." He offered her one of the glasses.

"Do you know Annabeth's friend Susan? I'm Susan's sister," she answered, taking the glass and sipping from it gratefully—the room was hot with so many people in it!

"Oh, Susan, yes, of course. And I see she's not the only pretty one in the family," he said, leaning toward her and smiling rather peculiarly, making her blush uncomfortably. "But why are you sitting here alone? Surely you know some of the other people here."

"No, there are a few years between Su and me," Lucy explained. "We don't really have a lot of friends in common, though Mother says that will change when we get older."

"A lot of things change when you get older," he agreed. "Friends, family, the world…" He raised one hand, and let it drop to the cushion between them, nearly on top of Lucy's hand. She pulled it back. "Though it would be nice if some people didn't. May I get you more punch?"

"Er, sure," Lucy said, surprised she'd finished the glass so fast. He took it from her and moved off, returning a moment later with another. He sat down again, handing her the drink, brushing her hand as he did so. Lucy felt ill at ease, as he was sitting rather close, and she wondered where Sam had got to. She leaned forward to see around Judge Bricker, looking for the boy.

"So, you're Susan's sister, then. You're, what? Sixteen?" he guessed, pulling her attention back to him.

His staring was getting a bit unsettling. "I'm fourteen, sir," she answered, a little nervous at his focus.

His hand tightened around his glass. "Fourteen. My. But—go on, drink your punch, I know you're thirsty. Good. But forgive me, my dear, but there's something about you… You seem much older than fourteen."

Wryly Lucy briefly considered the effect of telling him she was actually around thirty-five, having ruled in Narnia for decades, but dismissed the thought. Susan would kill her if she brought up Narnia in front of strangers. Although… she eyed Judge Bricker. Hadn't the Professor said, long ago, that others who had been to Narnia would be able to tell you'd been? You could see it in the Professor, certainly, and his friend Miss Plummer, too.

She did _not_ see it in Judge Bricker, for certain. Which raised the question: what was he seeing in her, Lucy?

Perhaps the party and all was getting to be too much, for she became aware of a dull headache starting, and she started to feel just a little queasy. Or maybe that was just how close the judge was creeping.

Sam returned just then, excited and full of news of a fistfight breaking out. Judge Bricker exclaimed in dismay and moved toward the other room. Lucy let out a sigh of relief.

Sam eyed her closely. "Are you well?" he asked. "You look like you're not quite right."

"I'm …not feeling well," Lucy answered, uneasy. "I don't know what's come over me."

"And who was that you were talking to?" Sam asked, wrinkling his nose.

"That is our host, Judge Bricker," she informed him. "Maybe he just made me nervous and upset my stomach, or something. He's a little …strange."

"I'll say," Sam said. "You're the first person he's talked to all night, I think."

She checked the clock. Quarter to ten; they'd have to leave in fifteen minutes to be home by Susan's curfew.

Lucy scanned the room again. There was Fran, but where was Susan? "Do you see Susan? I think I want to go home," she said to Sam.

He looked over the room and frowned. "No, I don't see her. Do you want me to help find her?"

"Please," Lucy said, and went to stand, only to sit abruptly as the room spun around her sickeningly. "I think I'll stay here," she corrected herself. "Just bring Susan here, please."

"All right." The boy gave her a worried look. "You'll be all right on your own?"

"So long as I don't try to walk, I suppose so," Lucy replied, huddling in on herself. She let her eyes slide closed for just a moment as Sam left on his hunt for Susan. She hoped he found her quickly; she really was feeling rather miserable.

Then there was an unpleasant shock of a damp hand closing around her upper arm. "Why, Miss Pevensie? Not feeling well?" It was Judge Bricker, looking concerned behind his thick lenses and the hair flopping in his face.

"No, I'm afraid not," she replied, trying to dredge up a smile. "Sam has gone to get Susan, and we'll go home."

"Oh, you'll want your coat and hat, then, my dear," he said. "Come with me and we'll fetch them." He put his arm around her shoulders to steady her and guided her to her feet.

It was the strangest thing. Lucy felt like she blinked and was suddenly across the room. What was wrong with her?

Judge Bricker had a glass of something fizzy that he was holding to her mouth. Reflexively she swallowed, then grimaced at the bitter taste. It wasn't bicarbonate of soda, though perhaps it was something similar, to settle her stomach? He tried to make her sip again, but she turned her head away.

"No." Her mouth felt thick. Where was Susan? For that matter, where had Sam got to?

"And here we are at the coat-room, my dear—" the judge was saying, but his voice was oddly distorted in her ears. He reached around her to work the door handle and she nearly fell into the room. She stumbled forward, hands outstretched; the room was dark.

A sudden well of misgiving flowed over her, and cleared her head a little as she registered the sound of the door closing, the lock falling to, the door cutting off the light. She had half turned toward the sound when he was on her, wrapping his arms around her, his hot hands grasping at her skirt, his mouth on her neck, her cheek, her mouth. She froze for a moment in disbelief. "Oh, yes, you little tease, coming here with that shocking bright lipstick on your mouth—" He pressed his lips against hers, and at the sour taste of the liquor on his mouth she nearly vomited, violently wrenching her face away from his, his lips dragging across her face. "—I can see it, you are definitely not anyone's good little girl, are you? You have a woman's eyes, eyes with forbidden knowledge."

"No, please stop, Judge Bricker," she pleaded, twisting away from him. "I think you're drunk, and don't know what you're doing."

"Oh, I know just what to do with a fresh flower like yourself," he said. "Fourteen. How many boys have you kissed?" His hands roved.

 _Aslan, help me,_ she prayed desperately. "None!" She shoved at him. "Let me go, or I'll scream."

He laughed at her, and shoved her away from the door. She twisted, trying not to fall, and tripped toward the bed, finding herself leaning elbow-deep in the pile of coats and hats. Next second, he wrapped an arm around her middle, pulling her body back against his, his other hand pulling her face to turn toward him.

"Stop! Let me go!" She shouted, as loudly as she could manage.

He slapped her lightly, scoffing, "It's just a kiss, my dear. You'll like it." He pushed his lips against hers again, and she twisted and shoved and screamed in outrage.

She had no idea if anyone could hear her, over the music and dancing and all, but she'd try. She kept screaming. Had the sound outside dipped?

One of Orieus' training sessions on positively down and dirty fighting popped into her head just then, and shoved at him with one arm as she scrabbled among the coats and hats with her other hand, hoping to find—yes! A steel hatpin.

Against all odds, she was lucky. It was one of the older styles, long and most importantly, sharp. Without hesitating she fisted it and jabbed it into his side. He grunted in surprise. She gritted her teeth, pulled it out, jabbed again, pulled, jabbed. He uttered a hoarse cry, let her go, and clutched at his side: good, she'd hurt him, at least a little.

She twisted and kneed him in a rude place—tried her best to, anyway—and shoved him away from her. Stumbling, she scrambled for the door, hating the way the corners of the room still spun around her.

The door rattled, and someone knocked forcefully. "Hello? Did someone yell in here?"

Just as her fingertips were nearing the lock, she was jerked back by her skirt. "Yes, help!" She shouted back. From what she could see in the dark room, Judge Bricker was on his knees, one hand pressed to his side and the other grasping her hem. She pulled herself away, not caring that her skirt tore, and lashed out with one well-aimed kick at his belly. He fell forward on his hands and knees, gasping.

Lucy prayed for strength, and stabbed the hatpin through the thin place between two of his fingers, straight through into the wooden floor. She got very lucky: the tip rammed into a crack between the floorboards, wedging itself in tightly.

He howled with pain, but didn't get up, instead trying to pull the pin out of the floor with his other hand. She lurched over to the door, grabbing at the lock fretfully. Whoever was on the other side of it was slamming against the door.

"Wait, wait, I'm getting the lock," she called, feeling along the door til she caught the protruding handle for the lock, and threw it.

Charles burst into the room. "Lucy! I heard you yell, are you—" He stopped, looked at her standing dazed in the light, looked around, swore comprehensively, and swooped Lucy right off her feet, carrying her straight out of the house. He yelled for someone named Robert to 'clean up the mess, and get all these people out of here.'

Four steps down the walk, Lucy began to shake. Charles put her down and rather awkwardly patted her shoulder. "Look, don't go to pieces on me yet, Lucy, I've got a friend who has a car, she'll come and—"

But then they were interrupted by a yell. "Lucy?"

Edmund was somehow standing on the walk then, staring at her in shock, and she fairly flew to him. He wrapped her in a tight hug, narrowly avoiding clocking her in the head with the large wrench he had gripped in one hand. "What happened? Sam said you and Susan both disappeared, and…" A somewhat bewildered looking Billy and Mr Fletcher trailed up the street behind him, led by an extremely hyper Sam.

"…so I knew I just had to get extra help, so I ran and got you and now we're here, but I still don't know where Susan is! Or Frannie."

"We'll find Susan and Fran," Charles promised.

Mr Fletcher, Sam, Fran, and Billy's father, caught up with them and eyed the teenagers flooding out of the house with misgiving as he asked Edmund and Billy, "Now, boys, what's this all ab—" He broke off as he saw Lucy leaning on her brother. "Lucy? Lucy, are you all right?"

Edmund let her peel herself out of his grasp. This was not the time to fall apart. She took a breath. "I am. Or, will be."

Mr Fletcher stepped closer. "Are you sure? Are you bleed—no, that's lipstick. No, you are! Your nose!" He dug a handkerchief out of his pocket and held it to her nose, which was indeed bleeding. "But—" he took a second look at her, taking in the torn skirt and mussed blouse and tangled hair. His lips tightened. "What young idiot did this to you?"

"That's what I want to know," Edmund said lowly. "I want to have a talk with him."

"With that tone in your voice, you'll not do any 'talking' to anyone while you're holding my wrench," Mr. Fletcher said dryly. "Come, give me the wrench, or there'll be murder done. Good lad."

He turned to Lucy. "Now, Lucy, we do need to know who—"

"Oh, there's no doubt who," Charles said, on more solid footing now he didn't have a potentially hysterical girl to look after. "Lucy gave him what-for. With a knitting needle, or something."

Everyone stopped and looked at her. She tossed her hair. "It was a hatpin."

Edmund actually chuckled a little, and whispered to her, "Orieus?"

"Yes."

"Aslan bless that centaur."

The boy Charles had sent to 'clean up' stepped out of the flow of people departing the house. "All right, Charles, we've got that old bas—" he glanced at Lucy, and changed tacks. "We've got _him_ tied to a chair in the kitchen. Most of the people have left, and we've called the Pevensies to say there's been an issue with Lucy. They're coming in their car. I guess we'll let them decide if they want to call the police. It seems rather an unbelievable situation, on the face of it. I mean, someone like him—"

At the word 'police,' Edmund made as though to go into the house, but Mr. Fletcher grabbed his collar and held him. "Don't go in there half cocked, Edmund. If your parents get here and you're beating the snot out of some lad, it won't go well for you, even if you do have reason."

"Erm—" Charles began to explain, a touch awkwardly, that it wasn't a 'lad'.

"And where is Susan?" Mr Fletcher asked.

"Oh, she and Fran are sitting in the living room sobbing their eyes out," Robert replied. "They were out back sneaking a smoke with some boys, and—"

"Smoking?" Edmund and Lucy said together, shocked.

"I know, nasty habit," Charles said. "Can't think why some girls pick it up. Pipe tobacco's all right, for your granddad or father or something, but these cigarettes—"

"That's really rather beside the point, isn't it?" Edmund said, giving him a nasty look.

"Right. Right. Sorry. I don't—I really don't quite know how to handle all this. Sorry."

There was the growl of an engine, and the Pevensies' auto came to a screeching halt near the curb.

Peter was at the wheel, and he was out the door as soon as the auto had stopped moving. His parents were not too far behind. He crossed the lawn in a few long strides and wrapped Lucy tight in his arms. "God, Lucy, we'd heard you'd been hurt—I thought you'd been killed—what happened?"

"I—I—" How to say it? Lucy's face twisted in disgust, as what Judge Bricker had done to her, maybe had intended to do to her, crept over her. "Someone wanted to kiss me. I … objected." She colored as she said it, but raised her chin defiantly.

"He didn't only want to kiss you, Lucy. I saw him," Charles said grimly.

The coin dropped. Mrs Pevensie let out a low wail and headed toward her daughter, arms outstretched. Mr Pevensie looked stunned. Peter's jaw tightened, and he started to head determinedly toward the house. Mr Fletcher looked alarmed, and tried to grab him, but Lucy reached out from the circle of her mother's arms and caught Peter's arm, stopping him. "No." she said. "No. He's not going anywhere, and, well—"

"You boys both need to calm down," Mr Fletcher said, maintaining his hold on Edmund. "Look, your sister is banged up a little, sure, but it sounds like she showed this fellow what's what."

"Your sister skewered him," Robert put in, sounding quite satisfied. "We had to chip up a bit of the floor to be able to move his hand. Well _done_ , Lucy."

"Thank you, Robert."

Mr Pevensie shook himself out of his stupor. "But who is it? Was it one of Susan's friends? Some stranger who showed up?"

"Noo-o-o," Lucy said slowly. "It's not …a boy. Perhaps you'd just better go see who it is."

They all filed into the house. Matthew Bricker, the younger one, was sitting with his head in his hands on the bottom step. He looked up as they came in. "I—I don't know what to say, Mr. Pevensie," he gasped. Tears streaked his face. "I had no idea—but I guess I should have known, when my girlfriends stopped wanting to come over…"

Mr Pevensie's brow knit, and Peter looked impatient. "What are you talking about?"

"They don't know, Matthew," Lucy said softly. "Not yet."

"Oh, God." He dropped his face back into his hands, and without looking back up at them, said, "Go into the kitchen, then. I called the police myself."

Edmund and Peter exchanged a worried look at this, and deposited Lucy and her mother (who hadn't let go of her) on chairs in the hall before heading after their father into the kitchen, where, it seemed, another of Charles' friends was standing guard.

They heard a brief scuffle, and then Mr Pevensie's voice, sounding very studiously calm, and—a little amused? "Thank you, Edmund. No, leave him be, Peter. It looks like your sister has already taught him some kind of a lesson. Goodness, that's quite a bit of blood."

"He is _four times_ her age," came Peter's growl. "At least. But even if he weren't, he can't be allowed to get away with—"

"And he won't," Mr Pevensie promised, and ushered them back into the hall, where he looked at his daughter sharply. "Lucy. Sweetheart. Are you all right?"

She looked up, and what she saw in her father's face, something like despair, made her own face crumple at last. "Oh, Dad," she said on a sob, and then he was kneeling in front of her chair, hugging her against his shoulder, like she'd wished he could do so many times in the War years. But this was for a far more serious hurt than the banged knees she'd wished she could take to him, and she didn't think a kiss would make this better.

And she saw, in her father's face, that he knew she would never again have a childlike trust in adults again: She would not be able to assume that strange adults would care for her. She knew now that her father was far from the godlike being she'd known; he was a man like any other, and there were some things he was powerless to fix. And she wept.

After a while, she calmed down a little. She had to, or she suspected her mother at least would entirely go to pieces. And really, what had happened? He'd kissed her, yes, and grabbed her, but she'd gotten herself away. There was a lot to be proud of, in that. And look at how many people had come running to help her—people she hardly knew! There was a lot to be grateful for in that.

She looked at her family around her, loving them intensely in that moment. But—"Where's Susan?"

"Here," came a watery, miserable sounding voice. They all turned toward the doorway to the living room, where Susan hung back hesitantly. "Oh, Lucy, I'm so sorry." Her eyes were red and swollen, and she looked shrunken in. Her lipstick was entirely gone, and her eyes and her handkerchief were stained with sooty marks from the kohl she'd used to darken her lashes. Now, the smeared makeup made her look ill.

"It's all right," Lucy said. Well, it _wasn't,_ but what else was she going to say? "You didn't know." That, she could say with a deal more solidity. Susan might have been foolish for not turning around the moment they saw how large this party was, but Lucy knew if she'd thought the party was actually dangerous, she'd have turned around and gone home.

Margaret finally let Lucy go, and stood. "Susan, come here. Are you all right?" She closed her eldest daughter in her arms.

"Oh, I'm fine," Susan said, dashing more tears from her eyes. "I just feel so miserable about—about—"

A throat cleared, and the Pevensies turned. "Sorry to interrupt," Matthew said. "The police are here."

An older man in a uniform, with greying hair, stood behind him. He looked toward Susan. "Is this the young lady who was, er—?"

"No," Mr Pevensie said tightly. He put an arm around Lucy, who stood. "This is."

A look of deep dismay came over the officer's face when he realized how young she was, and he was very gentle as he asked her about the incident. He took her a few steps away from her family, for which she was grateful.

"Do you need to know all the details?" She asked him softly, glancing toward her mother.

"Not… specifically," he replied kindly, flicking a glance at her hovering, worried parents. "We'll go through it quick as we can. Did you know Judge Bricker before?"

"No, I met him tonight."

"Did he say or do anything when he met you?"

"He gave me a glass of punch."

"Why?"

"I was sitting alone at the moment—Sam had gone to check something—and I just thought he was being a considerate host."

He gave her a shrewd look. "D'you think he might've doctored the punch a bit?"

"It's certainly possible. It was after I drank it I started to feel unwell."

"Anything else he did was odd, when he was talking with you?"

"He'd seemed oddly fixed on my age, I suppose. And he kept saying I was pretty."

"You said you felt unwell after drinking the punch. When did you realize it?"

"At first I didn't, but after about an hour, I just started to feel a bit unwell. Then when I went to get up, I lost my balance and he took me to the coat room."

"Did he force you to go there?"

"No, I don't think so. I don't remember little bits. I did want to get my coat. But then he closed the door and—" she gasped a breath "—and grabbed at me, and—"

He waved before she could continue. "You don't need to say it. So, you fought him off? And stabbed him with a hatpin? Why?"

"I wasn't just going to be quiet and sit still and let him—let him—" she said. "Well, I wasn't going to let him keep kissing me, for one thing. And if – if it had been anything more, I was going to stab him in the eye, not his hand." She said this last firmly.

"And I wouldn't blame you in the least." The officer said, surprising her. "I've got a daughter around your age, and gosh! I wish she had a tenth of the fire you've got. Now, I'm going to have a word with your brothers and father, there, and then we'll take Judge Bricker away. You and your mother and sister will probably want to be in your auto, so you don't have to run into him, all right?"

Taking that as a thinly veiled order, Lucy, Susan, and Mrs Pevensie all went and sat in the back seat of the car, Mrs Pevensie wrapping her coat around Lucy. Certainly none of them wanted to go find Lucy's coat now.

A few moments later, two policemen and the officer Lucy had spoken with came out, Judge Bricker secured amongst them. They shoved him in their vehicle none too gently, and one of them muttered loud enough they could hear it, "Filthy old bastid."

The Pevensie men came out on the porch with Matthew Bricker, who still looked dejected. Mr Fletcher, who'd sent his children home but stayed to see the Pevensies were all right, stepped up and said something to Matthew, whose wrung his hand gratefully, then disappeared into the house.

Peter slid in behind the wheel, looking slightly satisfied and his father took the other front seat. Edmund squeezed in the back, reaching over to grip Lucy's hand.

"You know, Judge Bricker slipped in the kitchen when they were leading him out," Mr Pevensie said blandly. "Three times."

"I do believe he broke one of his teeth in one of them," Peter responded smugly.

"And had the wind knocked out of him, at least," Edmund said, sounding self-satisfied. Lucy realized the hand she was holding was starting to swell. She gave Edmund a look, and he winked at her. "But I think your count is off. Remember, he 'fell' again when that older officer came in. He must've been startled."

"Dear," Margaret said to Joseph suspiciously. "You didn't do anything rash, did you?"

"Certainly not!" Joseph replied. "All the policemen will attest that they never had their eyes off of him for a second."

"They even picked him up every time he fell down," Edmund put in.

"And dusted him off." Peter said. "Very thoroughly."

"Though I'd never seen someone's clothes beaten of dust while they were still wearing them." Edmund replied, thoughtfully.

* * *

They arrived home and headed in to the house. Lucy looked at the clock when they went in, and was surprised: It was barely past eleven PM. Somehow, with all that had happened, it seemed that much more time should have passed.

She was jolted out of her thoughts when, as soon as they were all in the door, Peter grabbed Susan by the arms and hissed in her face, "What were you thinking, Susan? Do you know what he could have done to our little sister? She may have been sent to keep an eye on you, but you're her sister! You should have been looking out for her, too."

Susan burst into tears, and covered her face with her hands. Joseph gently pried Peter's hands off her arms and steered her into a seat in the living room. "Susan," he said quietly. "I want you to look at me, and answer your brother's question, forcefully though he put it. What happened? How did Lucy come to be in – in such a situation?"

"Oh, I don't know!" Susan wailed. "She spent most of the time sitting in the corner, talking to that little Fletcher boy, and every time I looked for her, she was there. She hadn't moved. So, I thought that it would be all right to step outside for just five minutes or so—"

"Why were you outside? What did you need to go outside for?" Joseph's temper started to slip.

"I—I—" Susan looked around frantically.

"Apparently, she's taken up smoking," Edmund said, crossing his arms.

"Smoking? Oh, Susan." This was from Margaret, who crossed to sit with Joseph. "So, you went outside to smoke."

"I was only gone for a minute or two! But then someone told me that the Fletcher boy was looking for me, that Lucy was sick. I ran straight back into the house, I swear! And then someone said they'd heard Judge Fletcher was taking care of Lucy, and I thought, well that's all right then." She swallowed. "But then—then—" tears started again. "Charles heard that, and he told me we had to find Lucy _now_ , that he'd heard things... So we went looking." She shrugged.

"The next I knew, I heard Charles yelling and thumping against a door, and I heard Lucy scream, and then I heard a—a yelp, and then Charles was barreling past everyone with Lucy under his arm." She lifted her tearstained face. "I swear, I swear, I never _ever_ thought anyone there would hurt anyone—"

"There was liquor being drunk," Joseph snapped. "I could understand some of the upper form lads passing around a beer bottle, maybe, but liquor? At your age?"

"I didn't drink any!" Susan protested.

"But the other attendees, who are your age, were. And the mere fact that some of them were drunk should have led you to turn around and come home. Where is your _sense_? Where is your judgment?" He huffed out a breath. "And that's not everything. Lucy, come here."

Lucy, who'd been hanging back in the doorway with Peter and Edmund, walked over. Joseph eyed her critically, going from tangled hair to dirty face to torn skirt. "Susan."

"Yes, sir?" Her voice had gone hoarse.

"This is not the state in which your sister left this house." He said. "Is it."

Miserably, Susan shook her head.

"Maybe— _maybe_ —Lucy took down her braids at some point. But the makeup? That's all you, isn't it."

A nod.

"Entirely inappropriate for a girl her age, for one, and for two—again, where is your judgement? Did you not think about how she would look to some of those young men?"

"But they're my friends!" Susan protested. "They would never—"

"You're personal friends of everyone who was there?" Joseph asked skeptically.

"No," Susan admitted. "Not everyone."

"I had permitted you to go to a party because you assured me it would be small, and you knew everyone who was going," Joseph reminded her. "You just admitted you didn't know everyone, and that was no small, close-knit party."

Susan looked even more downtrodden and on the verge of tears again.

The sound of a throat clearing came from the doorway. Edmund stepped forward. "Sir? If I may speak?"

His father nodded tightly.

"All of what you are upset with Susan for, is true," Edmund said. "However, in the interest of being fair and just to Susan, I need to point out that it was not a young, drunk man who tried to hurt Lucy. It was a judge, someone whom I think anyone would probably just place trust in without thinking about it much. Is that fair?"

Joseph nodded, calming slightly. "I suppose so. But—"

"And there's something else," Edmund said. "You must also admit that all of the _young_ men we have heard of, behaved decently, drink or no drink. Even Matthew called the police."

"That's true," Joseph agreed reluctantly. "So?"

"So Susan should have come home right as soon as she realized the party was either too large, or had too many people drinking liquors, or whatever reason. Right?"

"Yes."

"But she didn't. She misjudged. She made a mistake." He added, in case his father missed the point, "It _wasn't deliberate_. I feel certain that the moment she'd had an inkling Lucy might be endangered, she would have left, even if it did make her a laughingstock. You heard her, she knew where Lucy was nearly the whole time!"

"She did," Lucy said. "I checked on her, she checked on me. I only didn't know where Susan was for those few minutes."

"And," Peter said, coming fully into the room too, "Susan knew, too, that there were other people who knew and liked Lucy, who had a reason to keep an eye on her. Charles, and Sam, for example."

"And a good thing there was!" Joseph exploded. "If Sam hadn't run off for help, who knows what would have happened?"

"But nothing _did_ happen, Father," Lucy said, gently catching one of his flailing arms. "I got away, and I'm safe. Susan used bad judgement, but I could have insisted we go home, too. I didn't. So we both learned a lesson, here. And, look, Su obviously feels awful." She turned to her sister, who was huddled in on herself looking inconsolable. Lucy knelt on the ground, and put an arm around Susan. "But I'm fine. And if there's anything even to forgive, I forgive her."

"R-really?" Susan blinked at her. "I can't imagine what you're feeling, what you've been through—"

"Very little." Lucy informed her stoutly. "I've come away hurt worse from—from falling off a horse." She adjusted what she was going to say, which was 'arms practice', at the sudden remembrance that her parents would not be able to take that idea calmly. Especially not right now.

"So what I propose," she said, "is that we all go to bed, and get some rest, since no one is in a good place to make good decisions right now. And we can talk about it all tomorrow."

"That's a very good suggestion," Margaret said. "I think we should take it."

Joseph reluctantly agreed, and they all dispersed.

* * *

Peter caught Lucy before she went into her and Susan's room, and whisked her into the boys' room. "Really, Lucy, are you all right?" His eyes searched hers, and Edmund, sitting across the room, sat upright.

"I'm fine," she said.

His face darkened. "That's what you said when something similar happened in Narnia, and it wasn't really true. Is it true now?"

"I knew you would be remembering that," she sighed. "It is true," she assured him. "I'm fine. Or, I will be. It's—different, here. For one, you hear about such things happening here, you... well you don't expect it, exactly, but it's not unheard of. It's very, very rare in Narnia or Archenland or those places. For another, I got away. I hurt him worse than he hurt me. He's in jail, which helps a lot, I think. And… it wasn't personal, if that makes any sense. He only kissed me, and then I got away. The other…" she sighed. "I think it affected me so much because it was a personal betrayal, not just" she swallowed, "attempted rape."

"Don't," Edmund said, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the wall. "Please don't say that word in front of Father. He was on the verge of throttling Susan earlier for your being _kissed_. If he had any idea that worse has nearly happened—"

"As if he wouldn't be equally upset at the news of your dying half a dozen times," she flashed back. "Poor Father. I think somewhere he supposed that once the War was over, we'd all be safe."

"No where is really ever totally safe," Peter observed. "But we can watch one another's backs. Which is what burns me about this whole thing, Lu. Why on Earth didn't you and Susan come straight home when you saw how wild things were?"

She flushed. "I guess I was excited to be going to a real, more grown-up, sort of party," she admitted. "It seemed like fun. And Susan wanted to go so terribly, I hated to disappoint her on the very doorstep."

"I guess we all learned something today, then," Edmund said.

"Well, Susan, hopefully, has started learn to make better decisions; Father has learned we're not safe everywhere; I've learned that Lucy's spirit is as strong here as it is in Narnia," Peter smiled at Lucy. "What did you learn, though, Ed?"

"That one can put a hatpin straight through a man's hand. I had no idea that was even possible!" Edmund half-crowed. "If I haven't said it, great job, Lu."

"Thanks," she beamed at them. "And I really should be off to bed, now."

She crossed the hall and eased the door open, not wanting to wake Susan if she'd already fallen asleep. She had just slid under the covers when her sister's voice came in the dark.

"Lucy?"

"Yes?"

"Are you really all right?"

"Yes."

"And…"

"What?"

"Do you really forgive me?"

"I don't think there's anything to forgive you for," she answered, surprised.

"You're a better person than I. Does it ever get tiring, being so good?" Susan sounded forlorn.

"I suppose sometimes it might seem that way, but you're just as good as I am. Remember, Asl—" she broke off before she could finish speaking the Name. "Never mind. I'm no better than you. We just have different things to offer one another. Don't beat yourself up."

There was a pause. "Thanks. Good night."

"Good night," Lucy answered, and thought that, given the other potential outcomes of the evening, ending it home and safe and loved, if slightly bruised, was a pretty good night at that.

The short term repercussions of this whole incident were that the Pevensie parents declared that they couldn't trust Susan's judgment, and certainly weren't going to leave her younger siblings in her care the whole summer. So they made arrangements to park Peter with Professor Kirke, and tried to get Alberta to take all three of the others, but she refused. She reluctantly allowed herself to be talked into taking at least Edmund and Lucy, though.

Which left them still with Susan to find a place for, and after the whole debacle with her younger sister, and the judge, and everything, most of her acquaintance were steering clear of her. Eventually Joseph managed to persuade someone at the university to pay for half of Susan's fare, if she would do some writing for the university from a young person's perspective during his lecture tour in America.

While a trip to America sounded like quite a lot of fun, Joseph was determined to make most of it a penance for her slip-up. He knew Susan hated writing, but she'd do it out of a sense of obligation and guilt. And he and Margaret conferred, and pared down the number of permitted outings in America to the absolute minimum; the rest of the time, Susan would be expected to be helpful, gracious, patient, and she should either be working on her writing, or waiting patiently with a book in the hotel room. And Joseph was assigning the books she'd read.

For Susan, at least, it was going to be an awfully long and somewhat lonely summer.

That's another story, though.

* * *

So.. this is REALLY not how I envisioned this chapter going AT ALL, but there it is. So, I guess this is pretty definitely an AU sort of story, tho I suppose there's some room in the background of the books for a story like this. Perrrrrlease review and let me know what you think!


	6. Eustace After His UnDragoning

Aftermath of _Voyage of the Dawn Treader_ and _The Silver Chair_ , or How Eustace Kept Being UnDragoned.

Just some more Eustace writing. This *might* be the last story in this between-the-books run, unless there's something anyone particularly wants to see? Let me know in a review or PM. : ) Golden Age story is in process. There will probably be several multi-chapter stories, but if anyone wants to see a particular one-shot, lmk in review too : ) 

* * *

"Edmund, Lucy! They're here!" Eustace's voice held a mixture of excitement and bittersweetness as he called to his cousins. He was excited to see their happiness at seeing their family again, but it would be hard to let them go, now. "Edmund?"

When he didn't receive an answer, he hurried up the stairs to Lucy's room, where he'd last seen them. "Didn't you hear me? Do you need help with your—oh."

Lucy was sitting on her bed, staring forlornly at the painting on the wall, tears trickling down her cheeks. Edmund sat beside her, his arm around her shoulders.

Eustace wasn't sure what to say, exactly, but newly awakened instincts, which had been honed the past several weeks since they'd returned from Narnia, prompted him to go sit on Lucy's other side.

"It wasn't so bad these past weeks," Lucy sniffed. "I could wake up and look at the _Dawn Treader_ , and when I went to sleep I could fall asleep looking at her, and think of C-Caspian and Drinian and… and Reep—oh!" A new flow of tears interrupted her.

Clumsily Eustace fished out a handkerchief and handed it to her, which she applied to her face.

"But now I have to leave even the painting behind…" She gestured helplessly. "It hurts all over again."

"Buck up, Lu." Edmund said bracingly. "I know how you feel, but you can't let it overwhelm you."

"I didn't realize it was," she said miserably.

"Come now, cousin," Eustace said. "You can't go to pieces on me. What kind of example are you setting for me? What'd Reep tell me you were called in the stories—Valiant? Anyway you don't want your Mother to see you were crying, do you?"

Lucy took in a deeper breath and gathered herself. "No," she said, and wiped her cheeks, standing and resolutely turning her face from the painting. "No, you're quite right. Thank you, Eustace." She bent to pick up her bag, but Eustace beat her to it.

"No, I'll carry it down for you."

She smiled at him, and he felt a thrill, knowing he'd Done Something Right again.

If he was still keeping track, he'd have given himself a mark for that. He feared he'd be in need of the reminders. What would happen to him when his Pevensie cousins went away? Would he backslide? Would he become that little toadying fool again? And what about when he went back to Experiment House—would the new Eustace survive?

His only hope was that Alberta—Mother—had already complained about how terribly _common_ he had become, and it wasn't too long before he'd realized that anything his mother thought 'raised' him above the common man, really only served to isolate Eustace. And those things that she criticized as being low-class and archaic were those kind and thoughtful and noble ideals he'd learned and grown to treasure in Narnia.

But he was afraid, deeply afraid, that the Scrubbs' modern house would wear away at the shaky foundation of decency he was struggling to build all alone.

They reached the ground floor, and before they opened the door to greet the elder Pevensies, Eustace reached to seize his cousins' hands.

Lucy beat him to it, in that way she had of sensing what others wished. "Oh, Eustace, _do_ write us frequently, and let us know how you're getting on," she said earnestly.

A smile spread across Eustace's face. "That's just what I was going to ask if I could do!"

"That offer goes for me, too. You'll get less trouble at school if you're writing a boy cousin than if you're writing a girl cousin," Edmund pointed out. "And… if you should get _back..._ "

"I'll write straightaway," Eustace promised, realizing that Edmund, too, was feeling the departure keenly.

A smile similarly graced Edmund's face, and Eustace got that thrill of happiness again. He'd made someone else _happy,_ just by making a promise he'd want to do anyway! And making them happy made him happy. It was one of the bewildering and wonderful things he'd come to notice (for, though he was rather a far more decent human being than he had been, Eustace was still an analyzer of things, through and through. He just put those talents to better use now).

They opened the door and trooped through to the driveway, where Alberta and Harold stood guarding the stoop against the interloping Pevensies. Eustace couldn't decide whose face was more hilarious when he politely greeted the people getting out of the car with "Uncle Joseph and Aunt Margaret! I hope you had a wonderful trip. I'm sorry Cousin Susan didn't come with you—oh, Cousin Peter!" he interrupted himself, as the older boy, with a wondering look, climbed out of the car.

Peter was tall and golden haired, and starting to fill out into his man's body, with a broader chest and more muscles than Eustace remembered him having. At the sight of him, Eustace was keenly recalled to a book he'd seen in Lord Bern's house, with illustrations and tales of the Four Kings and Queens of Narnia who had been her salvation in her darkest hour. Now, he hadn't been in any frame of mind to truly appreciate those stories then, dismissing them as faradiddle and balderdash, but now he thought to himself how remarkably accurate the artist had got Peter, despite there being—what?—a thousand year difference in time?

He barely checked the impulse to bow, in fact, understanding to his bones that this young man _was_ the High King of Narnia, no matter what realm he dwelt in. He also understood now a lot of the things he'd dismissed as Peter posturing or putting on a show were just… _Peter_ , and he wagered that if he wanted to _stop_ having such an effect on the people around him, Peter probably had to put in a conscious effort.

Much surprised, a bemused Peter held his hand out to Eustace, who wrung it gratefully, stepping close enough that he could say, quietly, "Please accept my apologies for being such a beast these years… High King."

Peter frowned at him for a second, and then his blue eyes flashed to Edmund and Lucy, who gave him studied looks in response as they greeted their parents, who were distracted in thanking the Scrubbs. Whatever he saw in their faces reassured him, for he grasped Eustace's hand back and said solemnly, "You are welcome to our number, we friends of Narnia."

"Can—can I write you too?" Eustace all but begged, and Peter really smiled.

"Certainly, Cousin. There may be issues you feel you can't really bother your father about, but I will be overjoyed to help you where I may," he said a little formally, and added, "sometimes it's nice to have an older boy to talk things over with." He spoke even more softly, sounding a little wistful as he asked, "So, you've met Him?"

"Yes. Yes. He saved me, and I hardly realized I needed saving," Eustace admitted, and reddened.

"He saved _all_ of us, no matter how noble you think we may be," Peter said seriously. "There was one time in the old days when he most properly clouted me over the head for being stupid, and well I deserved it. I'll write you about it, sometime."

"I'd like to hear anything about those days," Eustace said, checking over his shoulder that both sets of parents were still occupied and not witnessing this strange sounding conversation. "They sound so wonderful."

"There were many wonderful days," Peter said. "They didn't call it the Golden Age for nothing. But at times our peace was hard-pressed, and hard-won, and there were times of sorrow and loss, never doubt it. But those times of sorrow and loss, were, I think, the catalyst for a lot of growth, too. So remember that Aslan never allows something to be totally bad, though you might have to search for the good somewhat."

"But that's—well, _there,_ " Eustace said. "What about here?"

A brilliant smile appeared. "He is here, too," Peter confided. "That's another thing you have to search for. But I will say you absolutely never know where you're going to find Him. I have found him in the most unexpected places."

"That's wonderful."

"It is."

There was a little pause. Then Eustace asked, "Erm. Is Susan sick, or something?"

Peter's face darkened. "It seems Susan has got, well, rather a little silly during her time in America. She has, thank God, left the really _stupid_ behavior behind that got her sent there in the first place, but she's replaced it with some very shallow silly ideas. I suppose on the whole silliness is preferable to stupidity that puts others at risk—" he shot a glance at Lucy that Edmund couldn't interpret. "However, I'd rather see her using her brains more than she seems to be at present. But," he sighed. "I am only her brother, and Mother and Father seem to think this is some sort of phase, so I can only wait it out. But—ah! It looks like the parents are wrapping up. Here, help me put these bags in the boot. And do write me, and I will write you, too. I'm sure your perspective of Narnia will be most illuminating."

Eustace had to stifle a laugh at his aunt's and uncle's rather shocked looks when he and Eustace and Lucy embraced fondly and waved each other good-bye. He chose to ignore the gimlet stare his mother treated him to as the Pevensies' car moved away, and instead trotted back to his room to reset the few things that had been displaced during Edmund's stay.

And then he found it: a letter, from both Edmund and Lucy, full of encouragement and cheer and kindness, and a wish that he continue in his path now he was "un-dragoned," and most of all, their love as his cousins. He straightaway placed it in the pile of books that were to accompany him back to Experiment House in a week, and went down to scrub and peel potatoes for dinner, his heart far lighter than he would have imagined it could have been, the day the Pevensies left him on his own.

* * *

When he got back to school he discovered some interesting facts. First, some of the older, bigger boys and girls, to whom he'd sucked up all last year, were not so old or big as he remembered. Certainly Cousin Peter could handle them easily, and he rather thought that in many ways, even Cousin Lucy was older than most of them. Certainly, she was wiser.

These realizations helped him unthinkingly resist their pressure, and he stood up for some smaller kids who'd really be hurt if They got after them.

He also realized, soon after this, that some of Them were exactly as old and big as he remembered, and he bore bruises for many days following his rescue of the younger kids. But he was able to bear them with a sort of pride, knowing one kid would be able to treasure the memory of his pet rabbit without Their interference, or that Spivvens wouldn't end up with a broken back if Eustace had anything to say about it.

He took to taking runs around the property, to build up his stamina, and when he could he would look through his textbooks and find illustrations on exercises to build up his arms and legs, and he would do these when he thought he wouldn't get caught. Gradually, his arms and legs began to look less weedy, and a tiny bit more like the illustrations in the books.

But what helped him the most were the letters from the Pevensies, full of anecdotes and cheer and encouraging thoughts.

And then right at the end of the second week of term, he and Pole got swept away on their grand adventure, traveling across Narnia and into the Wilds of the North and rescuing Prince Rillian. Then they were sent back with Caspian at their side to beat some sense into Them at Experiment House. For a week or two, everything was topsy-turvy as the Head shrieked about Lions and Lunatics and what all, and there were investigations and interviews and questionnaires and things. And most of Them (the worst ones anyway) were expelled. Eustace found he didn't much care where they went. Eustace and Pole became rather good friends, and they both wrote to the Pevensies of their adventures and asked their advice on being more Narnian in England, and the rest of the term went by quite speedily. Pole asked if Eustace could come and stay with her over the Christmas break, and her somewhat surprised parents said yes.

The Poles, it seemed, were quite unlike the Scrubbs. They'd enrolled Jill in Experiment House on the understanding that it was a _different_ sort of school, the sort of school that brought out just the _best_ in its students, and wishing the best start for their daughter, they got Jill a place there. Jill, of course, never told them what things were really like, so when all the news had broken about the Headmistress going mad, and some of the abuses older students would dole out to younger, and all the rest, they had been very alarmed, and were looking for another school for Jill.

The Jill asked them if her friend Eustace Scrubb couldn't come for part of the Christmas hols, and he'd really appreciate it, and it would be all she wanted for Christmas that year, really.

Well, given a request like that, the Poles had shelved, momentarily, their plans of moving Jill, and had agreed she might have her school-friend over.

When he arrived at the Poles' Eustace had, on Lucy's advice, saved up and gone out and got a small box of chocolates to give to Jill's mother, which charmed her instantly. Blushing, Eustace stammered, "Oh, ma'am, I just took Cousin Lucy's advice," and then blushed harder when she kissed him. He didn't get kissed much by mothers, not even his own.

"You dear boy," Mrs. Pole gushed. "You thought of asking, and that's far more than I'd have expected, given what we've heard recently about Experiment House."

"Well, things are better now," Eustace said. "Ever since we—er—"

"Ever since we saw the Headmistress go bonkers," Jill said, with a warning glance.

Later, when they were alone, she hissed at him, "You almost _told_ , are you mad?"

He blushed yet again. "Alb—Mother mostly doesn't pay attention to what I say," he protested. "And I stopped myself!"

"Barely," Jill said, but she looked sympathetic.

Later she looked more sympathetic when Eustace laid his largest problem out for her.

"I want to give my Pevensie cousins something for Christmas, but—well—I've never given anyone a Christmas present before," he said. "How do I know what to get?"

"Well, I'd say anything that would be a happy reminder of Narnia." Jill said. "I know I'd love to know more about its history and all. I still can't believe your cousins were the rulers! I'd like to meet them, someday."

"You will," Eustace promised. His face lit up. "And I just thought of the perfect Christmas gift for everyone!"

* * *

A couple of weeks later, Joseph was surprised to find a large, flat package on the doorstep. "I wasn't expecting anything, were you?" He asked a curious Margaret, who shook her head.

They examined the wrapping more closely and could hardly believe their eyes: the package was addressed to "My Pevensie Cousins," and was signed, simply, "from Eustace."

They set it near the Christmas tree to wait until Christmas Day. Wihen time came to unwrap it, Lucy and Edmund, with an excited gleam in their eyes, attacked the plain paper package.

"Oh, he did! He did!" Lucy exclaimed.

"That Eustace has turned out all right," Edmund said.

Peter agreed, "He certainly has," and glanced at Susan, who looked at the painting of the _Dawn Treader_ and turned her head away, her throat taut with tension. Peter affectionately placed his hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently. Her only response was a slight movement of her hand to touch the back of his, but that was all.

Peter sighed and moved toward Lucy and Edmund to share in their excitement over the painting. Susan could sulk if she wanted to; he would enjoy Christmas.

Across town, Jill Pole frowned over the bulky, bendy package that had appeared on her doorstep the previous afternoon. It was marked with a bold "Do Not Open Until Christmas Day" and smaller lettering indicated it was from "your friend, Eustace," but she couldn't imagine what it could be.

She carefully peeled the paper back. A plain notebook sat in her hands, and she puzzled over Eustace's difficult handwriting for a while until she realized what it was: a book full of Narnian stories.

Later that day, as she sat, engrossed in the book, she discovered it wasn't just Eustace—he'd got his cousins to write accounts of Narnian history for her, too. She began to feel as though she'd met Eustace's cousins as she delved through Peter's bold scrawl, Edmund's spiky, precise script, or Lucy's flowing open handwriting.

She loved them all already, and knew they all, with Eustace, would remain the best of friends.

Eustace got up on Christmas morning to rather a bleaker scene: no scene at all. There was no crackling fire, no Christmas tree, no carolers. No ornaments or manger scene or candles, and it was unlikely they'd have anything like a festive dinner. It was Brussels sprouts night.

So his surprise when the doorbell rang around noon was great, and it only intensified when he went out to the stoop to find a couple of packages, and letters, waiting for him, Special Delivery.

He smuggled the lot up to his room before Alberta or Harold even knew anything had been delivered. The first package was from the Pevensie parents, a new notebook for him to write in, with a kind note of thanks for being such a good friend to Lucy and Edmund over the hols. The second was from Peter, Edmund, and Lucy, and it contained a list of all the good things they knew he'd done or changed about himself in the past six months, and a letter from all of them telling him how much he was loved and appreciated by them. The last was from Jill, and it had a clumsily-made Christmas card, and a note expressing how happy she was they'd enjoyed such adventures together, and lastly, pressed in the card, a leaf and a feather that shone with such rarity they could only have come from Aslan's country. "They were caught in that outfit I used for that fancy-dress party," she wrote. "I couldn't bear using them as props but thought it might encourage you. So you get to keep them for now."

 _All in all,_ Eustace thought, _this might just be the merriest Christmas I've ever had._ And he went to sleep that night, well satisfied with all the world.

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As always, let me know what you think, good or bad. Constructive criticism helps as much as praise!


	7. Brothers in Arms

This is sort of a bonus-y chapter, from the following story request: "I would really like to see a situation where Peter and Edmund remember that they're not in Narnia anymore in regards to maybe a fight?"

Here's the resultant ficlet! Enjoy!

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Brothers in Arms

"Ha-art, where've you gone? We haven't finished our discussion."

Edmund glanced up from his favored table in the school library, near to the doors. The door opening had allowed the echoing, mocking call from the hallway to enter the normally silent, sacred confines of the _librarium,_ and Edmund felt misgiving. While he didn't recognize the speaker's voice, he did know Bartholomew Hart, who was in the same dormitory as he.

Bart had returned to school a little late this year, officially due to a late-in-summer 'family gathering,' but unofficially due to his older brother's being installed in a sanatorium. The elder Hart son had gone to war diligently enough, but had returned with a wracking cough, permanently streaming eyes, and shattered nerves. No one had ever said anything about it openly. Even the teachers only discussed it in hushed tones, behind solidly closed doors Yet, as is the way with school gossip, everyone seemed to know just why Bart had not been at school for the start of the term.

Most of the boys had had brothers of their own, or fathers, or uncles involved in the War in some fashion, so the general tenor was muted sympathy, or at least, gratefulness it wasn't their loved one so afflicted.

And then there were the one or two bad sorts, who never could see any soft human element but that they needed to stick a figurative knife in it, and twist. Edmund feared the one looking for Hart was one of these; there was an edge to the call that made him think the 'discussion' was an unwilling one on the other boy's part.

Sighing, he closed the history text and started to gather his things. He'd likely end up involved _somehow_ ; that's just how things seemed to be falling out recently. But at least he'd be able to have a nice, drama-free dinner tonight. Peter was one of the prefects of the school this year, to their mother's joy, and Pete had arranged for Edmund to be allowed to dine with his brother on Sundays.

But before he went off to dinner, he'd probably have to sort out this whatever-it-was between Bart and his interlocutor.

Sure enough, when he exited the library, he saw Bart all but hiding in an alcove that had held a statue until earlier this year (a visiting teacher's pug had somehow gotten into the corridor, and the statue had been a fatality of the ensuing mayhem).

"Pevensie!" the other boy exclaimed gratefully. Bart seemed to realize that was a bit too keen and fell back on an overly casual tone. "Don't suppose you're heading back to the dormitory?"

Clearly, he didn't want to make the walk across the quadrangle alone. Which undoubtedly meant the one who'd been looking for him was, indeed, one of those not-so-good sorts.

"I could run my books back before dinner," Edmund replied, with sympathy. It would make him a few minutes late to meet Peter, but his brother would understand. Bart already got picked on because of his name, "Bart Hart," and he was one of the smaller boys in the year besides, which seemed to make him rather more of a target for casual shoves or snipes in the halls.

"All right. Walk with you?"

"Sure."

They'd made it about halfway along the path when they were intercepted. Tom Sherman, who was in the next form up from the two of them, stepped smirking out of the shrubbery.

 _That_ couldn't be a good sign. Edmund was on his guard: Sherman had to have seen that Bart wasn't alone, but the older boy still looked smug.

"Hart, you ran off before we could finish talking," he complained.

"We were done." Bart bit off shortly. "I've nothing further to say." He continued up the path, but Sherman sidestepped into his way.

"We're done when I say we're done," he said, giving Bart a light shove and still all but ignoring Edmund.

That was enough of that. "Come now, Sherman," Edmund said, stepping slightly between them. "Leave him be. He doesn't want to talk with you."

Beady eyes fixed on him. "Oho, it's Pevensie the Younger, sticking up for the Bleeding Hart, here," Sherman said. "You're not half as big as your brother. Are you really going to try and make me leave Hart alone?"

"If I have to."

"I'd like to see you try."

Edmund rolled his eyes. "Would you really like to see me try, or would you rather save yourself a lot of trouble, and just leave Hart alone? What good does bothering him do you, anyway?"

"It might get the Head to look at what sort of weaklings they're letting in here. Whingeing, spineless cowards don't deserve a top-rate education. The family's already snuck one through here; they shouldn't get another chance." He sounded strangely adamant.

"Ah, so you're being the brave one here?" Edmund couldn't resist gibing him, looking up at his greater height and weight pointedly. "I see. Well, in that case—"

"My brother is not a coward!" Hart shouted, fists tightening unconsciously. Apparently he knew a bit more about whatever was bothering Sherman.

"Isn't he?" Sherman advanced on the smaller boy ruthlessly. "My cousin was in the same unit, and _he_ said your brother's whole squad just _stopped fighting_ in the middle of battle! No gunfire, no shells, nothing. And then later he sees your brother in the infirmary, after the fight, acting like he and everyone with him hadn't turned the white feather! Despicable." He spat.

Edmund paused, not having considered Sherman's side in all this. With his cousin bringing back such a tale, his ire against the Harts was a little understandable. Not excusable, certainly, but understandable.

Then he saw Bart's face, which had gone stiff and white like it does when you're trying not to shout, or not to cry. He struggled to speak. "It was the gas," he finally got out.

"What?" Sherman's fists lowered a fraction.

Hart gulped a breath. "His group got hit by a gas canister. They weren't fighting because nearly everyone was going blind, or strangling, or dead already. My brother watched his best friend drown in his own blood when his lungs dissolved because of that damned gas. So don't you say he's a coward."

"Gas," Sherman repeated, but not like he believed it. "That's convenient. And how exactly did your brother survive, then?"

Hart had found his tongue, evidently. "Didn't your cousin tell you about the gas? It sticks to the ground, and crawls up your mouth and nose. It doesn't move with the wind; it stays thick. To survive it, you need to get out of it, quick. Geoff is really tall. I guess he was tall enough the gas didn't get him so much. But he tried to save the others, he did! Only," he choked, "only there's nowhere to run in a battle. Especially not when your damned neighboring units don't come help," he added venomously.

Sherman's face reddened. "Are you saying my cousin didn't go to a fellow Englishman's aid? He lost his foot to this war!"

Hart lifted his chin, and retorted, "I'm saying it's fellows like your cousin who damaged my brother's mind, and the guilt lies with _them._ "

At that, Sherman's face darkened, and he swung on Hart. He socked Hart's shoulder, and had drawn back for another blow when Edmund forced his way between them.

" _Gentlemen,"_ he said. "Hart, would you shut up? Sherman, calm down. There's no reason to—" But he wasn't quick enough. The next punch got Edmund just over the eye, and he saw stars and staggered back, not having expected it.

That spurred Bart into action, who threw his small self at Sherman's bulk with a cry.

Edmund called out, "Bart, no—" but it was too late.

Shaking his head to clear it, Edmund grabbed at Sherman's arm, hoping to halt the fight that way, but apparently others had noticed the incipient melee and had gathered around. One of Sherman's cronies interpreted Edmund's grabbing at Sherman's arm as an attack on his friend, and he waded into the fight with relish, wrapping a big hand around Edmund's shoulder.

Edmund ducked just in time to avoid another knock to the head. "Come on, this is all a misund— _oof_ ," he huffed, as the wind was knocked clean out of him.

"Stop," he croaked out, when his lungs let him. But it was too late: from where he'd fallen, Edmund watched in dismay as about half a dozen other boys leapt in, on different sides, and were soon trading jabs and slaps and punches.

The next thing he knew, he was being hauled to his feet by a familiar hand. He spun to put the back of his left shoulder against Peter's, the two of them facing off against circled enemies, as so many times before. Bart had been knocked down and lay groaning at their feet. He struggled to his feet.

"What's going on, Ed?" Peter asked over his shoulder, keeping an eye on the others.

"Stupidity, mostly," Edmund replied.

"Well, besides that." Moving as one, they maneuvered so they were closer to the fighters and between them and Bart.

"I guess Sherman blames Bart's brother for some sort of incident in the War," Edmund said, "and Bart didn't want to discuss it. Sherman threw the first punch."

"How'd you get hit?"

"I was in the way of the second punch."

"Ed…"

"I thought he was going to stop! Honest!"

"Stick close by me."

"Of course."

They continued moving toward the fighters, trying to get between each dueling pair. Several boys stopped right away when a school prefect was suddenly in their way, or when they recognized Peter. Others needed the pair of brothers to physically press themselves between them, and throw some punches of their own until sense regained footing in the combatants' minds.

Edmund, despite the danger of the situation, found a grin tugging at his lips. Fighting, back to back with his brother, was just so _natural_. It was good to know his back was looked after, and he knew Peter felt the same.

When things had been sufficiently calmed, and both sides separated, Peter drew himself up to his imposing height, and fixed the boys with a severe expression. "Do any of you even know why you are fighting?"

"I've got my mate's back," one of Sherman's friends said staunchly. A couple of the other boys nodded emphatically.

Hart's friends sneered. "Well, so have we."

"Very well, do you know why _they_ were fighting?" Long fingers flicked toward Sherman and Hart, who were looking a little ashamed now.

The defiant expressions lost a little of their edge.

Peter turned the gimlet stare to the two in question. "Can you explain to me _why_ I shouldn't put marks on your records for this? Or take this to the Dean?"

"Er—" Sherman didn't have a ready answer.

"He won't leave me alone!" Hart burst out passionately. "My brother is not a coward. He was _hurt_. But Sherman won't leave me be!"

"My cousin almost died!" Sherman bellowed back. "And it was his brother's fault, I'm sure of it."

"Be that as it may," Edmund said, stepping to Peter's side, "Bothering Hart about it—fighting him about it—helps you… how, precisely?"

"I—well—" Sherman seemed flustered by the request to apply logic to his views. Then he seemed to think of something, and his chest swelled as he drew breath to speak.

"And if you're about to spout some nonsense about how beating up a member of _his_ family will help _your_ family 'get back' at his, stow it," Edmund continued ruthlessly. The other boy's chest deflated. "Let me remind you _why_ that doesn't work. Did your English tutor have you read Shakespeare?"

"Well, of course he—"

"And did you ever notice anything about all those feuds and duels and things between families in his plays?" Edmund pressed.

Seeing where he was going, Peter smiled slightly and crossed his arms, waiting for his brother to finish.

"Notice what?" One of Sherman's friends asked, sounding cautiously interested.

"The overall outcome of all that idiocy, of perpetuating a feud, was not wealth or prestige or honor. The outcome was always dead men." Edmund said flatly. "None of the families got much more than another funeral to plan out of the whole mess… _until they decided to stop fighting._

"You two seem set to start a whole new stupid interfamily feud all by yourselves, and over what? Two of your relatives who are still alive! Yes, they're both damaged, but they are still alive, which means they have the chance to heal."

Peter smiled as he noticed more of the combatants looking chagrined—including both Hart and Sherman. Edmund finished, "We've just come through the biggest war the world has ever been involved in. I think there's been quite enough broken and dead young men from that conflict already. Do we really need to continue it here?"

There was a little silence, and Peter said, a hint of steel in his voice, "I believe you were all asked a question. Does this need to continue?"

"No," Sherman admitted. "I suppose not. Sorry, Hart. I just really love my cousin, he's like a brother to me, and, well, it's tough seeing the trouble he has getting around now. Pax?" He offered a meaty hand.

"It's really hard for me, too," Hart said, sounding choked. "And when people say my brother is weak or a coward, when I _know_ he's not, well… it gets deep, you know? All right, all right," he said, glancing at Edmund's pointed look. "I'll shake and make peace."

With the two chief fighters shaking hands, and the rest of the group looking less belligerent, Peter and Edmund waited a moment to be sure they were all dispersing, then turned as a unit toward Peter's rooms.

"I see you haven't lost your knack of talking people out of bad decisions," Peter said. "Well done."

"I'm glad you haven't lost the knack of turning up in the right place at the right time," Edmund replied ruefully, touching his swelling eye gently. "Your presence reminded everyone that fighting _isn't_ the best decision, which allowed me to get through to them."

Peter chuckled softly. "Where'd you come up with Shakespeare, anyway?"

"I'd been reading a history on Elizabeth's Court in the library, and one of Sherman's friends had a copy of _Hamlet_ under his arm. Shakespeare popped into my head. Seemed sensible to think Sherman and his friends would be studying the same things, right?"

"What would you have done if the friend had been carrying an algebra book?" Peter wondered.

"Still tried to talk them out of it, but depended on your air of high kingliness to dissuade them," Edmund replied flippantly. "Fortunately, Shakespeare worked."

"Fortunately." They walked on a few more paces, and Peter sighed. "Fights _were_ a lot easier to break up when you could order the combatants apart, weren't they?"

"Or failing that, order a complement of Royal Guard to separate them," Edmund agreed mournfully.

"But we got the job done, as usual." Peter said brightly. "Together, as brothers, which is how Aslan likes it, I think. Come on, let's get a cold compress on your eye."

"Are you going to have to report all this to the Headmaster?"

"Mm… Probably that there was almost a fight, and why, but I don't think more detail is needed. No one needs to be in trouble over this. Why?"

"I was thinking of how the girls reacted in Narnia any time we got into a fight there. I'd rather avoid tears _or_ demands for details over the break, if we can."

"That's an upside of being Here rather than in Narnia I hadn't thought of," Peter said.

"What's that?"

"No Court gossips to carry every little tale back to the Queens. Especially those we'd rather _not_ get back to our dear sisters, like fights!"

"The gossips weren't all bad," Edmund objected mildly. "But yes, on the whole, that is an advantage here. Now, about dinner, and perhaps that compress…?"

"Come on, brother-mine," Peter said affectionately. "Let's tend to your battle wounds."

* * *

So, considerably less bleak/dire than the Susan/Lucy focused chapter, but I think it works. Comments? Other requests? Put 'em in a review or PM! I'll try not to take months about fulfilling requests next time : / Sorry for the delay, Guest reviewer! Hope you enjoyed it.


	8. Starting on the Path Back

This is another Guest reviewer request, this time of a bit featuring Peter and Susan. I hadn't realized I'd neglected to have anything focused on the two of them. : ) I will admit this turned out a little more bittersweet than I planned, but I think it works OK. Reviews are always welcome!

* * *

Starting on The Path Back

* * *

"This is Rabadash all over again, Su! Why can't you see that?" Peter exclaimed, pulling at his hair in frustration.

"Peter, don't be dramatic," Susan answered, patting her own hair into place as she ignored her brother's ranting. "Richard's a perfectly nice young man. His father is an advisor to the Crown! And I've told you, I don't want to hear about those silly games we played during the War. It's juvenile."

"What's juvenile is your stubborn refusal to admit it all really _happened,_ Susan," Peter replied repressively. He sighed. "Why you want to forget some of the happiest experiences you've ever had, I don't know."

"Why _you_ don't want to live in the real world, I don't know," Susan snapped back, straightened from the mirror, and dropped her lipstick into her little purse, snapping it shut with extra force. "But if it will make you feel better, I'll be sure Richard has me home by ten."

"If you aren't back by then, I _will_ come looking for you," Peter promised darkly.

Susan rolled her eyes and did not answer as she left the room. It wasn't that she doubted him; to the contrary, one of her previous dates had ended ignominiously when her older brother had crashed it, telling William his sister's curfew had ended a half hour prior, so would he kindly see himself home, and Peter would look after Susan?

Peter could be overprotective, and what was worse, her parents allowed it. So she typically chose to ignore him when he went into protective mode; that way she didn't have to argue with him.

From across the room, Peter shook his head at his sister's stubborn obtuseness. When would Susan wake up?

Take this Richard fellow. He was handsome and spoke smoothly, and seemed all politeness, but there was an unctuousness to his manners that rang false to Peter. He hadn't been hyperbolic when he said Richard reminded him of Rabadash; the young man really chafed Peter in the same way as Rabadash had, those years ago in Narnia.

He just hoped, denying Narnia or not, Susan was on guard and didn't allow herself to be swept away by the young man.

When Richard came to pick up Susan ten minutes later, Peter took the opportunity to look him over again. He still didn't like him, but at Susan's half-pleading, half-demanding look, he didn't voice any threats against Richard.

Feeling a little melancholy, he watched Richard's car move off down the road, Susan smiling prettily in the front seat. He turned and trudged back into the house and went to find his other siblings. They, at least, weren't likely to cause him as much of a headache as Susan did, on an increasingly frequent basis.

Lucy and Edmund looked up from the kitchen table as he walked into the kitchen.

The table had been covered with a sketch of Narnia's northwestern area: a campaign map. Peter eyed the odd collection of salt shakers, dried beans, and chess pieces that were arrayed across the paper's surface.

"Mum and Dad have gone to their dinner at the university," Edmund said. "We're on our own."

"So Ed and I are trying to remember the details of our fights against those bandits on the northwestern border," Lucy replied.

"I think we could have come around the southern part of the ridges and swept into their main camp, but Lucy says no," Edmund said. "What do you think?"

Gratefully Peter let his siblings distract him from his worry over Susan. "Well, was this before or after the Bat colony did scouting for us…?"

Mapping out battle strategies was far preferable to worrying over Susan's stubbornness, after all.

* * *

They were still engrossed in their strategizing and tactical analysis when the front door opened unexpectedly early. Peter glanced at the clock. Yes: it was only quarter to ten. He hadn't really expected Susan back for at least twenty or twenty-five minutes, at least.

This was highly unusual; he felt a stirring of unease.

"Keep working on this angle," he told Lucy and Edmund. "I'll just go check on Susan."

The other two were still absorbed in their work and nodded absently, neither taking notice of the unexpected time.

Although he moved toward the front door quickly, Susan had still put her coat in the closet and retreated upstairs before he could catch her. He followed her upstairs.

The door to her and Lucy's room was closed. He tapped on it softly. "Susan?" He called. There was no answer. "Su? It's Peter. Is everything all right?"

There was a little pause; a distinct sniff. "I'm fine."

He felt a little alarm. "Susan, you don't sound fine. May I come in?"

The only answer he heard was a soft sob, so he said, "I'm coming in," and turned the handle.

Susan sat in front of her dressing table, dabbing at her streaming eyes with a handkerchief. Peter looked her over quickly. She did seem all right, physically at least.

"What happened? Did he hurt you?"

"N-no," she said. "He didn't."

His frown deepened as he tried to think what could be wrong. "Was he—forward? Did he try to, er," he groped for words, landed on his mother's favorite euphemism "interfere with you?"

"No, he was a perfect gentleman. And it's not his fault the nice things he was saying made me—oh!" A fresh well of sobs interrupted her.

Much concerned, Peter pulled over a footstool and sat beside her. "Su, what is it? Tell me. Let me help."

"You can't."

"Please."

There was another little pause; then, in a tiny, tired voice: "All right." Susan wiped at her eyes again, set a little more upright, and faced her brother. Her eyes searched his open face, but she couldn't seem to find the words to begin.

"What did he say that made you cry?"

"It's so stupid. I'm sure he thinks I'm mad."

"What?"

"H-he said I was the most beautiful young woman he'd ever seen… and he c-called me the 'gentlest soul he'd ever met.'"

"Oh, Su," Peter sighed, and hugged her. He wouldn't crow in triumph that for at least a moment, she wasn't denying Narnia and Aslan, for if she truly did not believe in them, that particular adjective—Gentle—wouldn't have any power to hurt her at all.

He did feel a moment of sympathy for Richard, who couldn't have any reason to know that word would be anything other than flattering to Susan. Then he pulled his attention back to his sister, who seemed to have found her voice.

And she was finally talking about Narnia.

"It's so hard for me here, you know? I don't know how you other three do it. How you can go from being feted and loved and cheered everywhere you go—how you can go from being world-famous—how you can go from being a power that others listened to—how you can go from everything we _were,_ to… being nothing, nobodies here. I don't understand how you three don't run mad.

"And how you can live here knowing we are _never_ to go back. It still smarts. Talking about That Place just reminds me of everything that I was there, that I'm _not_ here, and it hurts all the more. So it's easier just to wall it off and not have it hurt anymore."

"Su," Peter said, and chafed her hand. "Of course it's tough. We all have to struggle with fitting in here, feeling sad we can't go back there, missing all our friends and adventures and things. –No, we do! It's not easy! But we help each other through it; _that's_ how we don't run mad. We strengthen each other. We'd welcome your strength, too."

"But I'm not strong!" Susan cried. "I'm not Queen Susan here, I'm just Susan Pevensie who isn't smart or brave or a leader. I'm just _pretty_. So… I try to be as pretty as I can be, since that's all I'm good for."

"All you're good for? Susan, you spent years perfecting being a diplomat, a hostess, an organizer, headed up I don't know how many charitable efforts, served on committees, sat in judgement, helped draft laws and decrees, and still remained kind and welcoming to even the least of our people. How can you say 'pretty' is all you are?"

"That was in N—that Other Place," she said. "When I was Queen Susan."

Peter frowned at her bowed head. "Now, who told you you're not Queen Susan here?"

Astonished eyes turned toward him. "But I'm not! What do you mean?"

"We are _always_ Kings and Queens of Narnia, whether we're in Narnia or not," Peter said, a little fiercely. "And you are far more than just pretty, just as you were far more than just a pretty Queen in Narnia. You are kind and caring, and you go the extra mile for your friends, and you try to make people happy and content. Even if it means _you_ are unhappy, you do these things. You may not have been amazing at school," he admitted, "but a lot of people aren't very good at schoolwork, and they do a lot of good in the world. You can, too." He encouraged her.

"But how do I know what to do?" she pleaded.

How? Peter groped for an answer for her. "Well, you could start by thinking of the reasons Aslan chose you to sit on one of the Four Thrones," he suggested, "and go from there. Because He chose Susan Pevensie to be Queen Susan, which means Susan Pevensie has a lot to offer. And it means Susan Pevensie has the qualities to _be_ Queen Susan, whether she presently has a throne to sit on, or not. All right?"

She looked a little doubtful, but far more cheerful than when he'd come in. "I suppose so."

"No, really, all right?"

I-I promise I'll think over it. Really."

"Good." He said. "Now, why don't you come down to the kitchen and have some cocoa with us?"

She hesitated, and shook her head. "No, I think I'll turn in." Peter nodded, rose, and went to the door. Before he exited, she called out, "Peter?"

He turned. "Yes?"

"Thank you. You're a good brother."

"You're a wonderful person, Su, don't forget it," he smiled, and went back downstairs. Maybe there was hope for Susan after all.

* * *

The next day, Peter received a wonderfully worded invitation for he and his siblings to get together for dinner with old Professor Kirke and his friend Miss Plummer, and Eustace and Jill.

Reading over the letter, he was inspired with a sudden thought. Perhaps this was too soon, but perhaps it wasn't. It couldn't do any harm to ask, surely?

He found Susan on the telephone with a friend and quietly interrupted her.

"Su…" he held out the letter. "Would you… Do you want to come?"

Hesitation hung on her face, and a faint longing flashed in her eyes. Then through the earpiece, the person Susan was on the phone with asked, "Susan? Are you there? What about it, a whole week in an estate house! Do say you'll come. Delilah will be devastated if you don't."

"Well…" Susan said hesitantly into the mouthpiece, eyes still on the letter. "You see, I might have plans with my family…"

"Oh, _family_ ," the other girl said. "You can do something with them when you get back, surely? They're not going anywhere. And anyway you really must come or Delilah's plans for an equal number of men and women will be dashed. Please? It's really a once in a lifetime opportunity…"

Regret flashed in Susan's eyes as she said, "Oh, well, if it would upset all of Delilah's plans, I suppose I must go." _Sorry,_ she mouthed to Peter, looking truly disappointed, as the other girl squealed in delight.

Peter only smiled and shrugged, and mouthed back, _Next time._ He couldn't expect Susan to change overnight, and anyway she was willing to consider going to one of their friends-of-Narnia dinners, which was a huge change. So was the fact that she'd allowed him to mention Queen Susan at all last night.

He knew the others would be happy to know she was even considering coming at a future date, their sometimes grumbles about Susan's flightiness notwithstanding. Their grumbles were borne out of worry she would fall from Aslan's Presence entirely, which none of them wanted to see happen.

But she might come back to them, after all. That would be enough news to enliven their dinner.

Smiling a little sadly, Peter went to his desk to write a reply to the invitation. Yes, the three of them would be delighted to accept the invitation. But if an extra seat could be kept available—?

Just in case.

* * *

So, please let me me know what you think. I do have a set of Golden Age stories but they are on a computer that suddenly decided to not power on, so those'll start to go up once I retrieve them. (Apparently I did not save them to the cloud, shame on me.)

Any other ideas/requests? Glad to hear folks are enjoying the stories so far.


	9. Jill and the Friends of Narnia

This is another request via review. It falls somewhere between 'Eustace in Finchley' and 'Why Susan Went to America.' Susan hasn't entirely fallen away yet. Admittedly this ended up light on plot, and heavier on character, but mostly it's an exploration of a new viewpoint of life on this side of the wardrobe, I suppose. Any other requests? I'll try not to take months and months to write them!

* * *

A blonde girl and dark-haired boy kicked dust up into the July sunlight as they walked along a country lane. They'd left the little train station ten minutes prior, and were now climbing a low hill, heading toward a rambling redbrick building that was settled in the near distance.

The boy had consulted a pocket-notebook several times as they walked along the dirt paths that spiraled out from the station; evidently he had written directions. At the last check, he lifted his chin and squared his shoulders as he confidently led them up a road.

His confidence was perhaps a bit overstated, as this was the only actual road hereabouts. Insects zinged away from their encroaching feet, but everything else was drowsy in the sun. Even the birds offered only an occasional warble.

The girl seemed to be thinking hard as they walked. Her hands fidgeted nervously at a bit of ribbon tied round her waist. The boy had put away the notebook and appeared to be studying the dirt-packed road, hands shoved deep into pockets. The girl was the first to break the quiet.

"I'm _so_ glad we could meet up first, Scrubb," Jill said. "On the train, I mean."

At her tone, Eustace looked over at her in surprise. When he saw her face, he stopped walking entirely, disregarding that they were standing in the middle of the lane.

"Why, Pole, you can't be nervous! It's only my cousins and old Professor Kirke. They say he's tops."

"Only your cousins, the _monarchs_ ," Jill returned. "Of course I'm nervous!"

"'Monarchs'—that doesn't matter," Eustace assured her, tugging her along. Reluctantly she started walking again as he continued, "They're terrifically good people. They aren't all about the pomp, really. And of course they're not monarchs here, anyway."

"But I'd like to make a good impression," she insisted, as they walked. "Not duff things up like I did with Aslan. That was awful. His expression—!"

"You didn't duff things up with Him," Eustace assured her. "At least, not much."

"But meeting five strangers—"

"Bah. This can't be more frightening than going after Them with just a riding crop, can it? It's just tea."

"Well, no." Jill admitted. "Not frightening, exactly. Not in the same way."

Eustace pressed, "And weren't you the first to volunteer to stick your head out of the Land Beneath, although neither you nor I, nor Puddleglum, nor Prince Rilian, knew what was on the other side?"

"Ye-e-e-s," she agreed, tugging on one of her curls. But she sounded less uncertain.

"Pole, you've got courage! Remember, it was you really saved us when it came to escaping the Harfangs! It's thanks to you we got out before being baked into pies."

At that reminder, she straightened a little and perked up. "I did, didn't I?"

"And you so new to adventuring then," he said, nodding. "So pluck up your courage again, would you? We're here."

"We're—what?" She gasped, looking up at the doorway in front of them, as though the old rambling cottage had sneaked up to settle itself in front of them. "Oh, but really, I'm not—"

Eustace finished bringing the heavy knocker down on the door, and the resulting muffled boom of its voice rolled through the building hollowly.

"—not… ready." Jill faltered, and went a little pale.

Eustace frowned in concern. "Come now, Pole, you look ill."

"I _feel_ ill," she muttered back, but stopped speaking as the door creaked open before them, exposing a dim front hall to their eyes.

The hall yawned wide end empty around the light spilling in the doorway. There was no one there to have opened the door.

Eustace found himself swallowing involuntarily. With a glance at Jill, whose eyes were a little wider than usual, he stepped forward. To her credit, Jill stepped up with him, though it was clear her already unsettled nerves were not eased by doors opening of themselves. But she firmed up her jaw and moved forward.

"Erm… hello?" Eustace called, poking his head through. "Anyone here? Cousin Edmund? Cousin Lucy?"

They moved a few paces inward and paused, still seeing no one. Frowning, Edmund turned to examine the door, and laughed a little to himself when he saw the inside of it.

"Pole, come look." He said, in a far steadier tone. "Someone's rigged up some sort of pulley, or something, to open the door."

"How strange!" Jill exclaimed, bending to look at the mess of pulleys, levers, and wires that encased the door handle. One wire ran up the wall, along the edge of the ceiling, and disappeared into another room. That was about all she could determine for certain; the rest was a jumble. "I wonder—"

"Ah, our last guests have arrived!" An older (but not weak) voice came from behind them, making them both jump and turn.

A man in his late middle age, whose hair was quite white and rather wild, stood beaming at them from a doorway across the length of the front hall. He had a cane, but didn't seem to really need it as he crossed to them with good speed. His glasses, however, he certainly seemed to require, as he bent to peer at each of them closely. "Ah, young Master Eustace and Miss Jill! Wonderful. Wonderful. Delighted to have you. Do you like my door-opening mechanism?"

"Uh—hullo, Sir," Eustace stuttered, extending one hand. "Would you be Professor Kirke?"

The out thrust hand shook slightly, and for the first time, Jill realized that Eustace was nervous, too. Oddly, this made her feel much calmer. She was able to look at the Professor—for who else could it be?—and when she got past the alarming hair, swaying stoop, crabbed hands, and thick glasses, she noticed a few other things.

She realized that his eyes were clear, and twinkling, and kind; his hands were ink-stained but moved with grace; and his shoulders, though stooped, no doubt, from bending over books for many long hours, had strength running the length of them, nevertheless. And his smile was like a boy's—full of good cheer and bonhomie and welcome.

"Yes, yes; I am he," Professor Kirke said, to Eustace's question. "Welcome to my humble home, Master Eustace." He turned to Jill. "And it's Miss Jill… Pole, yes?" She nodded, and he chuckled unexpectedly.

"You are most welcome as well. You know, my dear girl, my friend who came today—another Friend of Narnia, and the oldest companion I have in this world—she is Miss Plummer. Polly Plummer. But when we were children I called her Pol. So it'll be Pol and Pole! Together with the Pevensies. And you and I, Eustace." He laughed outright at this, evidently delighted.

"Now, if you'll follow along, we're all out on the back terrace. A shame to miss such a perfect day sitting indoors! Not to mention, we wouldn't all fit in the kitchen." He turned to lead them through a series of smallish rooms, still talking. "And your lovely cousins have been cooking…"

He continued talking as they made their way through the cottage, but Eustace and Jill weren't really listening. Instead, they found themselves nudging one another and surreptitiously pointing or nodding at this and that as they passed tables and cabinets and shelves that had the oddest array of… things.

It was a professor's house, so of course there were books. But they had titles in strange characters, or were decorated with symbols, or were so old they had nothing left on their spines at all.

There were sea-shells, and stones, and sticks. A halberd leaned in a corner with a helm set atop a nearby desk. Beautifully carved wooden boxes warred for space among tilted picture frames and glass inkwells and squat stone jars.

Jill and Eustace quickly forgot all their nerves in looking about them with delight. It seemed that though the old professor had lost the famous old house in which the Pevensies had stayed during the War, the older gentleman had done his best to keep as many of his precious objects with him as possible.

Every now and again, they'd come across a clockworky item, like that they'd seen on the front door. One seemed to be there to dust under the bottom ledge of a cabinet; another was a pulley system attached to a sturdy shelf.

The professor, catching them looking closely at one of them, laughed. "Do you like my mechanicals? They're only a little bit of nonsense, but they save these old knees from kneeling to the floor to clean, or my back from reaching up too far."

"But what about the front door, sir?" Jill asked.

"That's so I can open the door even if I'm across the cottage," Professor Kirke answered, with some pride showing. "I just made it last week. I'm delighted it works so well."

"Were you a professor of sciences, then?" Eustace asked, looking around with befuddlement.

"Oh, no, I taught grammar and logic and philosophy," was the answer. "I suppose I get the puttering-about trait from my uncle, who was a foolish man. Gifted, but foolish." He sighed, shook his head, and continued leading them further back in the cottage. "Perhaps I shall tell that story today," he mused aloud, "but never mind that now. Come, and join our little fellowship of the Friends of Narnia." He pushed a solid looking wooden door open, and afternoon light streamed in.

* * *

They stepped out into a beautiful little garden, gone half wild and fragrant with flowers and herbs and loam. As they stepped out, they heard a happy cry and turned to see a girl a little older than Eustace hurrying toward them, a paring knife in one hand.

As she neared, Jill noticed her flowing chestnut hair, shot through with summer hints of red and gold; her bright, warm eyes; and her welcoming smile. She was a lovely girl, and had her smile been less friendly Jill would have felt quite aware of her dusty shoes and straggling curls, but as it was, she felt far more easy about this meeting, seeing that cheerful mein.

The girl went to greet Eustace with a hug, but he ducked her outstretched arm swiftly and backed away; the girl's brows hiked up in surprise and confusion.

"I'm happy to see you, too, Lucy," Eustace said. "but could you put the knife away before you hug me? I've seen you use knives before, you know."

Jill eyed Eustace a little skeptically at that, but she ought to have known better. The girl—Lucy—shrugged and laughed, and casually flipped the knife at a bowl of apples nearby. It was a decent shot. The blade pinged off of the bowl's edge and landed among the fruit.

Knife safely at a distance, Eustace then accepted her hug, but tutted in mock dismay. "You barely hit the bowl. You're losing your aim. I think you need to—"

"And are you going to introduce us to your friend?" Lucy interrupted him, with a laughing look. She didn't wait for Eustace but stepped around him, hands outstretched. "You must be Jill. Eustace has written us about you. We're so glad you've come!"

"Not least," a new voice came, "because we womenfolk have been outnumbered, here. You'll even us up." The speaker was an older woman who looked about the Professor's age. From her casual, teasing tone, Jill knew an equal number of men and women wasn't truly a concern for her. This woman was glad to know anyone who'd met Aslan and seen Narnia. "When I heard about this one joining our ranks," she nodded at Eustace, "I thought we'd be overrun with talk of cricket and hunting."

"Oh! You must be Polly," Jill blurted, remembering the Professor's pun. "Miss Plummer, I mean. I'm Pole, Jill Pole. It's very nice to meet you." Then she blushed, looking down at the girl's hands, which still grasped her own in greeting. "Oh, erm, and It's lovely to meet you, too, Queen Lucy."

Lucy laughed, squeezed her hands, and let go. "No, no, just plain Lucy, please. Eustace has told us about you. I'm sure we'll be good friends. Come, the others are finishing setting up our luncheon." She drew Jill further into the garden, while Polly commandeered Eustace's arm as a prop. The professor trailed along behind them.

The group came around a bend into a nice little paved area where there was an outdoor brick oven set up, with a long rectangular table nearby. The scent of roasting meat permeated the area. A boy a few years older than Jill and Eustace was frowning over a book of loosely-bound foolscap, which seemed to be trying to take off in the light breeze. The loveliest young woman Jill had ever seen was bending over the table decorations, and a handsome young man was poking at something in the oven.

"Say, Su," he was saying, turning toward the long-haired girl. "Did Lu ever get back with those—ah! They're here!"

Jill was struck by their very different reactions to their seeing her and Eustace.

The younger of the boys glanced up and smiled absently in their direction, evidently absorbed in his work. The older boy grinned broadly as he caught sight of them and began moving in their direction, a welcoming look on his face. The girl, though, took one look at Jill and the rest, uttered a squeak of dismay, and took a step back. Her hands flew to her hair as though it might be mussed, though Jill certainly couldn't see anything to mar its silky perfection.

Jill glanced down at herself, and seeing nothing amiss to cause such a reaction, cast an uncertain look at Lucy, whose happy countenance shifted into a slight rolling of the eyes. Lucy smiled again and let go of Jill, saying in a soothing voice, "Oh Susan, don't be a ninny. It's just Cousin Eustace and his school-friend, Jill. Even if the table decorations aren't quite as perfect as you'd like, I'm sure they shan't notice at all."

"Everything does look lovely," Jill ventured, plucking up her courage to speak. For surely these two could only be—

"Pole, let me introduce you to my cousins, Peter the High King of Narnia, and the Queen Susan." Eustace gestured broadly at them and grinned at her expression. "And that's King Edmund over there. Come on, they don't bite."

"Right!" Peter was nearer them now. He pulled out a chair invitingly. "And it's Peter and Susan and Edmund, if you don't mind. Come, sit down, Pole, and tell us the real story of your adventures in Narnia with our cousin, here. For I am sure we did not get the entire story out of him."

"Oi!" Eustace exclaimed, mock-indignantly, pulling out a chair of his own as Jill seated herself. "Are you saying I was making up tales?"

"No," the professor chuckled. "But from my many years of hearing stories, I can assure you, Eustace, that ten different people will tell you ten different things they remember about the same event. For example, I'd wager that Miss Pole, here, would hardly recognize herself in the heroic lady you describe when telling the tale of the lost Prince Rilian."

"What? Heroic?" Jill blurted, startled.

"You see?" the professor laughed.

Miss Plummer helped herself to a seat and interjected, "Oh, leave off fussing with those fripperies, Susan, and come sit and join us. Peter, don't you forget your roast. Lucy, you left your apples by the house. Edmund, bring that book here and be ready to take notes. And your penmanship had better have improved from the last time!"

Pevensies moved purposefully at her words; Susan took a seat; Peter returned to poking at things in the oven and Lucy brought her apples over, where she continued peeling and slicing them.

Jill looked at Polly, impressed. Eustace leaned over and muttered "Former schoolteacher," in Jill's ear.

She didn't have a chance to reply before the formidable women turned her gaze on her. "Now, let us hear your story, my dear."

"But where should I start?" Jill asked, bewildered. She had been hoping to sit off to the side at this get-together, but here she was in the center of things! And she was not often called on to tell stories.

"At the beginning, of course," Lucy said brightly.

This did not help Jill in the least, who looked around a little desperately.

"What was the very first thing that started you on your adventure?" prompted Susan, seeing her still hesitate. "There's always some odd thing Here before you get There."

Jill flashed her a grateful smile, took a breath, and began, unsteadily, "I suppose it started when Scrubb said to call on—but no. It began earlier than that. It really started when Dina Tibbins tripped me into the wall on the way to the dining hall. She was trying to suck up to Them, I suppose. She'd been friendly with me last term, but that morning she was just awful. And she said just the nastiest things to me to try to make me cry in front of Them. Apparently I'd been cheek to one at some point, and this was my punishment. So I ran away behind the gym, and…"

Jill found the story easier going as she went, forgetting her nervousness in her reliving of those weeks out in the Wild Northlands of Narnia. She admitted her bratty behavior at the cliff-edge right off, but the others nodded in understanding of a human failing. Eustace volunteered that he didn't think she'd been as awful as all that, but had to admit he'd missed all of Jill's interaction with Aslan.

Susan looked green at hearing how high the cliff in Aslan's Country had been. Edmund looked sorrowful at hearing of Caspian's advanced age, and the years of loss the king had suffered. Peter laughed out loud at the Owls' Parliament, but looked outraged when she told of the Harfangs' plan to cook them for their feast. Lucy looked appropriately sympathetic at hearing of their trials during the long days hiking and camping, but seemed positively ill when Jill told of their accidentally eating some of the Talking Stag.

When it came to the Lady of the Green Kirtle, the professor could be heard muttering to Miss Plummer, "Another lady like those in Charn, eh?" while Miss Plummer gave a tiny gasp at hearing about Father Time slumbering beneath the Northern Wilds.

Jill described the little people living underground (Susan shuddered in horror), and soon got to the part where she described their rescue of Prince Rilian. Miss Plummer nodded sorrowfully at how dreadfully drowsy and mesmerized the Lady had made them all.

"Good Marshwiggle, that!" was Peter's reaction when Puddleglum saved them (though Edmund wrinkled his nose in sympathy at the stink of burnt Marshwiggle). And then Jill told of the Prince's struggles in the grip of the silver chair, and his desperate cries for aid in Aslan's name.

"And then, even after we had failed at nearly every one of the Signs and failed at nearly every task Aslan had sent us, we succeeded in freeing Prince Rilian anyway," Jill said. "To be honest, it was mostly Puddleglum—and Scrubb."

"Bosh!" Eustace said to this. "It was all of us. But do go on, there's more."

"Although," Peter broke in. "If you're at a good place to pause, Jill, we can take a break to eat."

This suggestion was cheered all around, as the roast and bread and other good things had been filling the air with dizzying good scents for some time. They tucked in to the little feast hungrily.

Peter had overseen the roast, while Edmund had supplied root vegetables to soften in water. Lucy had done minor wonders with sweet summer fruits, and Susan had done a sun-tea as well as all the table decorations, which included bits of ribbon and tree fronds and pinecones and candles.

Professor Kirke had surprised them all with freshly baked bread, and it transpired that Miss Plummer—by now a fond 'Aunt Polly' to them all—had brought bottles of birch beer and fizzy lemonade. "Just like I used to have in my smugglers' cave above the rafters," she said.

"Is everything else Narnian, too?" Jill asked, interested.

"Hmmm, Narnia-inspired, perhaps," Peter said.

"The meat and veg and fruits are the sort of meal we three would cook up when out on campaign," Ed revealed. "That is, when we managed to leave all the Royal Cooks behind!"

"Remember, after Filibrick came out with us for just two days?" Lucy laughed. "He couldn't imagine how we survived, so far from the civilization of the Cair."

"And he never wanted to come again," Edmund added. "Su, your decorations—aren't they very like those you used to put together for the High Summer Feasts?"

Susan flushed in pleased acknowledgement that he'd remembered. "Oh, yes. Eustace, Jill, I'm sorry you never got to attend one of those. Centaurs read the stars, and the trees came out and spoke. Fauns danced and played til sunrise. It was all very lovely."

"Susan always made everyone feel comfortable. When she saw how much the wild folk liked the woodsiness of the Summer Feast, she started bringing in bits of the outdoors inside for our own gatherings at the Cair." Lucy said.

"You always had a fair hand at making everyone feel at home, Su" Peter agreed, smiling. "But Jill, do go on with your story. You and Eustace had just freed Prince Rilian."

"We did!" Jill said. "But in a second, the Lady was back with us, trying to ensorcell us again. She began to change into a giant snake! Prince Rilian didn't hesitate. He took his sword and lopped off her head, right there." Susan and Aunt Polly gasped, and Lucy's eyes widened at that.

"He did avenge his mother, as he promised, you see." Eustace said.

"But then, we had to run for it." Jill said. "With the Lady's death, all the spells that kept the underground people enslaved—"

"—not to mention, kept the caves stable—" Eustace interjected.

"—they all stopped working. So we had to run for upper ground as soon as we could. It was terrifying."

"I'd bet it was!" Lucy exclaimed.

So then Jill told of their harrowing journey through the flickering lamplight and enveloping darkness; the strange nihilistic joy of the people of Bism, leaping into a bottomless chasm; and of finally running into that last high-ceilinged cave with its apparent dead end.

"It was quite something," she said. "That very last cave… We'd been stumbling in the darkness for so long, with no real idea of whether we were going in the right direction or not. We knew we were going away from bad things, but didn't really know if we were heading to good things. If that makes sense?"

"It does; I know what you mean," Susan said softly. "Go on."

"We were there feeling like we'd just gone to all this effort, and run into darker and darker places, and finally had nowhere to turn to. And finally, all the lights went out."

"It was terrible," Eustace said, grimacing at the memory.

"But that's what saved us." Jill added.

"How's that?" Peter asked, leaning forward.

"Well, when there were the lanterns that the Lady had set up, we travelled by their light. When they went out, there was darkness. But if we hadn't had the darkness—if there had been the least bit of light in the cave—we never would have seen it, it was so faint."

"What?" two or three voices asked at once.

"There, high above our heads, just the littlest bit of pale blue light, coming in through a hole in the wall. It was so dark, that little bit of light shone out like a beacon. And so we decided I should sit on Puddleglum's shoulders (he was the tallest, and I the lightest) to see if the light was coming from anywhere useful.

"Sitting on his shoulders was still too low, so I stood on them and then—pow! I got hit in the face with a load of snow, of all things!"

"Snow!"

"Underground?"

"I shouted, for of course I realized: there's no snow underground. At least not usually, and anyhow someone had to have thrown it. Only they didn't hear me at first. When they did, they moved fast, for they thought I'd been in danger."

"But who were they?" Aunt Polly asked.

"Oh! Narnians. Dwarves, and Fauns, and Talking Animals of all sorts, and I don't know what all." Jill said. "They pulled me right out of the cave—"

"And a turn that gave the rest of us, you know!"

"—and eventually," Jill continued, ignoring Eustace, "they understood all I told them, and they dug out nearly the whole hill so everyone else (and the horses) could get out, too. They all cheered when they realized it was their lost Prince with them, and they all started making plans to get him back home as soon as possible."

"We slept, and ate, and went to Cair Paravel, and the same ship that we'd seen leave was coming in. But it was so sad." Jill said, and described Caspian's death.

The Pevensies reacted much more strongly to this part of the story than Jill expected, and belatedly she remembered Eustace mentioning their meeting a Caspian on their second trip.

"I'm sorry to have told you such news," she ventured, feeling badly for delivering such upsetting intelligence.

"Oh," Susan said, on a long wavering sniffle. "To think of that lovely young man, elderly and dying!"

Peter was a bit more stoical, though Jill could tell the news had upset him. "Come now, Su, don't carry on. This happens every time someone gets back, or nearly. Everyone has to go to Aslan's Country sometime."

"And he did!" Jill hastened to assure them. "That's what happened next…" and she related the end of their tale, which brought them back to England and Experiment House.

"So that's what really happened!" Edmund exclaimed. At Jill's odd look, he explained, "Father's in academia, and all the hubbub surrounding Experiment House caused such a stir that even the universities noticed."

"The newspapers noticed, too," Eustace said. "They had reporters all over trying to find out why the police had been called out to the grounds."

"When they called the school to assembly to ask if any students knew anything, I couldn't _look_ at Scrubb—I'm sure I should have laughed," Jill said. "But there's a few parts of the whole thing that just doesn't make sense."

"What are those, my dear?" The Professor asked, though Jill had the oddest feeling he already knew her question.

"Well—why did _I_ get pulled away to rescue Prince Rillian? I'm no one special. Not like all of you—kings and queens and professors, and all." She looked around at them, truly bewildered.

Aunt Polly laughed out loud at that. "My dear, we were none of us anything out of the ordinary before we encountered Aslan. Special and unique, yes, as is everyone; but still quite ordinary. I was a dreamy schoolgirl with too much time and too few friends."

"I was a sad country boy, miserable in a city." The Professor supplied.

"We were just four kids, separated from our parents and home by war," Peter put in.

"And I—well _you_ know, Pole. I was a right prig," admitted Edmund.

"I think," Lucy said carefully, "that Aslan needs things done, and he brings forth the best people to do those things. And even if you don't realize you really _are_ the best person to do it when you begin, somehow we all do manage. And then you realize how much _more_ you are, following Aslan, than you could ever be on your own."

"Hmm." Jill turned that over in her head for a moment, and found it was an answer that would do, for now. "I suppose that makes sense. There's another thing that doesn't make _any_ sense at all, though."

"What's that?"

"Time! It's so strange to think that while you were back here for—what? A year?—fifty or sixty years went by in Narnia."

"Well," the Professor's voice intruded, "It's not so strange when you consider that the whole Narnian world was sung into being in less than an afternoon. Time does work differently there. And when we'd come back, hardly a few minutes had passed."

"What?" Jill exclaimed, turning to look at him. "Narnia made in an afternoon?"

"An afternoon of Narnian time," Aunt Polly confirmed, smiling at the memory. "We all landed in the Darkness that was Before—"

"We?" Eustace asked. Evidently he hadn't heard this story before.

"Oh, Diggory—the Professor—and I, and Diggory's dreadful Uncle and the even more dreadful Jadis, and the cabby and his dear horse Strawberry…"

And then launched another round of storytelling, this time from the Professor and Aunt Polly, who clearly had told the story to the Pevensies many times, but no one seemed to be tired of hearing it again. And that naturally led into the story of the Pevensies' entering the magical world.

By the end of the day, the eight of them were as fast friends as any, despite the wide range of their ages. The meetings of all of the Friends of Narnia had finally begun.

* * *

OK, so there's Jill meeting the Pevensies, et al. Not a lot of plot, mostly character, but I think it works OK. Gosh, Jill was hard to write, though! As always, reviews are muchly APPRECIATED!


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